PHOTOGRAPH

Oakland University

I’m kneeling on the wooden floor of the living room at my mom’s house— small specks of dirt and cat litter digging their way into my skin—and rifling through the large blue plastic bin of pictures, looking for photos of myself to post to the foam boards for my graduation party, mapping out what might fit on the twenty by thirtyinch white boards from Michaels my mother still hasn’t bought. The party is only a few days away, and I didn’t trust that she’d find the time to pick out pictures and buy the boards, so I suppose I’d cut out the middleman and do it myself. I file through the photos, pausing to cringe at my ever-embarrassing paprika-covered baby face, before coming to a large black binder with gold script on the front. Six letters in that weird fancy way people write things, with the last name initial in the middle:

NWR & EHM

I lift the ancient tome out of the box and open it to the first page. A piece of bible-thin paper separates each cardboard page, and I have to be careful not to tear them. An inscription on the first page, the only one with white creamy paper, reads:

The Wedding Album of Nathan Roy Weilant and Erica Marie Herr Saturday, May Thirty-First, Nineteen Ninety Seven Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic Church

I’ve looked at this book many times, dreaming about time travel and how I wish I could go back and be there, watch them in their element, like season one, episode eight of Doctor Who. Sure, I wouldn’t be saving my father from being hit by a car and almost bring about the end of the world, or causing a fight between my parents because my mother thought my father was hitting on me, their daughter from the future. I’d do it right. Stay in the shadows, listen to their whispered conversations in between each pose the photographer walked them through, hear them saying their vows and try my hardest not to create a paradox. A small voice in my head nags at me, telling me it’s not as perfect as the picture makes it look, that I’d probably walk into them fighting, just like Jackie and Pete Tyler, that the cutesy little stories I used to make up in my head as a kid about my parents and how much they cared about each other—all that hoping and praying that if they could just be reminded about what they used to be, they’d get back together and everything would shine in a golden light (not unlike the trim surrounding each photo) and I’d have

everything I ever wanted and time would reset itself and I’d have a normal life: a regular white-picket-fence-and-pie-on-the-windowsill type of family—could never happen anyway. Another voice tells that voice to shut the fuck up and enjoy the beauty for a moment, to quit being such a downer. Staring at the wedding album, I feel nostalgic for something I never had, never saw, in real life. They’re encased in a golden octagonal frame, dancing. My mother’s eyes are closed, her forehead resting on my father’s. The photographer did a wonderful job centering them between two poles, a small balcony behind them, cheesy pink ribbon wrapped around the banister. In the right corner, I can barely see the altar; on the left: a table half obscured by a fake tree with string lights laced in its branches. My father looks so young, so happy, so in love. My mother almost looks annoyed, but there’s a faint smile on her face. God, I think, their side profiles are so amazing. What the hell happened to mine? In the short distance between them, I can almost see a tangible link. A red thread linking two lovers together, signifying them as soulmates. In the dim church light, they both seem to be glowing. I can hear the rustle of her satin wedding dress as she sways to a mix strummed by the three-piece orchestra, though I’m not even a thought in either of their minds just yet. They both look so peaceful, a slight glare from the camera lens catches their angelic halos in the light, surrounding both heads of curly brown hair. The next page: all three against the stained glass window, my father on the left, mother on the right, my sister (just a baby at this time, a delicate child with delightfully rosy cheeks) in between them. My mother is wearing pearl earrings and the giant bouquet in her hands, large enough that it almost looks like a grave blanket (white and pink roses, spring starflowers, baby’s breath), matches the flower crown on her head and the rose in my father’s lapel. The perfect family. Something I will never see outside of this photograph. On another page, white cake is smeared across my mother’s face. Her giant smile is plastered in frosting. My father’s left hand is stuffed full of cake, the other grips a champagne flute, and they’re leaning in to kiss each other. Another masterpiece of photography. I wonder how they got her to take so many pictures, and if she was as stubborn about them back then as she is now. I continue to flip through the pages, laughing at the horribly orange spray tan my Mimi had, the deep contrast between her hot-pink dress suit and its plunging neckline and the way Grams and Papa dressed as if they were going to a funeral, all muted colors and button-up shirts. My aunt Missy and her ridiculously curly hair in a pale pink bridesmaids dress that makes me cringe at my mother’s poor fashion taste (or whoever chose that style, I mean come on, half-capped sleeves and a cinched-sheath waistline with princess stitching on the bodice? Who the hell designed these?). There are a few strangers in the photographs, and I turn to ask who they are before realizing I’m home alone. My sister is out god knows where, and my mother is at work, probably tending to gunshot wounds or being shit on by old men, and won’t be home until eight hours from now, when the sun is up. I could text

my dad and ask, but he’s still on his weekend boy’s trip and is definitely asleep (even if he wasn’t, I’m sure he’d be too wasted to respond). I feel more alone than ever now, looking down at everyone’s smiling faces, the bubbles being blown at my parents as they leave the church, holding each other’s hands and running between an aisle of people. I can almost hear the bells ringing. All of it seems so foreign. The pictures must be fake. All the fighting, every screaming match between them that I’ve witnessed...there’s no way these are pictures of my parents. These can’t be the same people who yelled at the top of their lungs about being late to meet and exchange me and my sister at the Auburn Hills Police Department parking lot every Wednesday and every other weekend for three years. It can’t be the same people who took the whole family to court-ordered counseling for three months when I was eleven (snapshot: me screaming at the top of my lungs for everyone to shut up and listen). This is not the photo album of people who hate each other. This is a collage of beauty, of true love. This version of them, the version that lives happily ever after encased in a giant black binder, I wonder if they thought on that day how things would play out? If between the bouquet toss and grabbing the leg garter, they ever realized they were doomed? That, only five years later, this perfect little picture would be nothing but a distant memory, a fever dream in my childhood self’s mind? All of the pictures are inlaid under that same golden octagon, and I can’t help but think it’s the smallest bit ironic. As if whoever constructed the album had a glimpse into the future and gave my parents the framework to duke it out, to forever be stuck in an MMA match, the rest of us watching from the ground as two people who once loved each other planned out their punches, fighting until everyone in the arena died of old age. If they knew that their teenage marriage wouldn’t last forever. And suddenly, I’m drawn out of the pictures with the realization that I’ve been sitting so long on my knees, they’re starting to go numb. I sit flat on the ground, legs extended against the cool wood of the floor, quickly building up sweat under my thighs. I feel itchy and hot, and the hair sitting on the back of my neck is sticking to me in such a way that makes me want to pull a 2007 Britney and shave my entire head. As my heart starts to race, a million questions fly through my mind. Where did their wedding rings go? What ever happened to my mother’s wedding dress that she said she saved but I haven’t since been able to find, not that I care because it’s definitely too simple to wear if I ever get married, but also where the fuck did it go? Why did she keep this stupid wedding album if she hated my dad so much, routinely telling her friends she regretted meeting him every time she talked on the phone and thought I wasn’t listening? Why didn’t my dad get to keep it since he’s the one who actually wanted them to last forever and still talks about how much he loved her when he gets too drunk? More importantly, why on earth did I ever think this was going to be a good idea, to look at it? I slam the album closed, tired of its empty promises, and heave it back down into the forgotten blue bin, relishing the banging sound it makes against the weight of the other pictures.