My father forgot my mother’s name.
She laughed first so no one else had to feel exposed.
Now she was quietly stepping out of the wedding before anyone could decide what to do with the woman she was becoming.
***
That night, Mason found an old photograph in a box his mother had brought for the rehearsal dinner slideshow.
He held it up and started laughing.
She was quietly stepping out of the wedding.
Maribel was sitting on a picnic blanket in a yellow blouse, one eyebrow penciled darker than the other. Beside her, six-year-old Mason grinned at the camera with the exact same lopsided eyebrow.
“What’s this?” I asked.
He touched the photo with his thumb.
“I shaved off one eyebrow trying to copy my dad.”
“What’s this?”
“And your grandma…”
“Shaved off one of hers.”
I looked at him.
“Seriously?”
“Before church.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
“Shaved off one of hers.”
Mason smiled, but his eyes had gone somewhere else.
“I cried for an hour. Wouldn’t come out of the bathroom. Nana knocked once, walked in with Dad’s razor, and took hers off before I knew what she was doing.”
He set the photo on the table.
“Then she spent the whole afternoon making faces at me until I forgot to be embarrassed.”
