I was a bridesmaid when my friend got married. Nick and I have been friends since first grade. We grew up in the same village. We go through life together. After school we go to university. We are economists of the future. I know her family well. She has an older sister Lisa. She is much older than Nick. Fifteen years older. She lives in Finland, rarely comes home. She sent the bride money as a gift. She didn’t come to the wedding. But we are not talking about that, but about family. Nick has no other close relatives except her parents.
Nick’s father, Uncle Sam, is a cool, kind, sympathetic man. He loves children very much. When we were little, he always took care of us. My parents wouldn’t let us go swimming at the pond alone in summer, and, of course, we didn’t go there ourselves. Uncle Sam always helped us out. He would gather us all and take us to the pond. We’re swimming, and he sits on the shore and makes sure we don’t swim into the deep – takes care of our safety. Then he gathers us all up, lines us up, counts us, and gives us the command: “Go home, march!”
We, all the kids on our street, just adored him. He used to go with us for berries and mushrooms, and in winter he helped us fill up the ice hill with water. In short, he was our friend. We never noticed that he stuttered sometimes. And no one ever teased him about it. It happens, especially in the countryside, people with some physical disabilities get teased, but Uncle Sam was never called “stutterer” by either children or adults.
He has worked as a forester all his life and still works in the forest. He knows every fir tree and every aspen tree in the forest. When we grew up, he used to come to our school and tell us about the forest, teaching us to love it and to take care of it. That’s the kind of dad Nick has.
My friend’s mother, Aunt Emma, is also a very nice woman. Responsive and kind. She works as a letter carrier. Every day she goes to the district center, picks up the mail there and then carries it around the village. All the pensioners don’t dote on her. She’s a light in the window for them. She brings their pensions and pays their utility bills. And before, they say, when there was no cell phone service, everyone went to her to call. They had a telephone in the house, because Aunt Emma worked at the post office, and everyone went to call them if anything happened. No one was ever refused, no matter what time someone came in – even at midnight, even in the morning.
Some people just dream of parents like her friend’s. And how they love Nick – that’s a separate story. Nick is a late child. When she was born, her parents were the happiest in the world. They still love their daughter very much and are ready to do anything for her. They say no to everything for themselves, but they make her happy. They will buy and do anything she asks for. Nick knows this very well, and she enjoys her parents’ love to the fullest. She always had the best dresses and shoes, the best jeans, the best phone, everything – the best. Now her sister helps her too. She sends money for school.
Somebody will probably say I’m jealous. No, not at all. My daddy’s not the last man in the neighborhood. It wouldn’t cost me anything to buy what my friend has, or better. That’s not what this is about. I’m not talking about wealth. I’m talking about the moral side of life. So, about the wedding. About what shocked me.
Nick married a fifth-generation intellectual. Our dean’s grandson. A promising boy. Probably no one in his family wanted such a match for him, he was prepared for something else. But the boy fell in love with Nick. He was dissuaded, but he refused: either Nick, or I leave home and don’t know any of you. In short, he got me. My parents and grandfather, professor, gave up. The wedding took place. If you do not count the young people, it was not a wedding, and some sort of board or meeting of the scientific council. Most of those invited were professors and PhDs from our university.
But that’s not the point. I was very surprised that Nick did not invite her parents to the wedding. When I asked her about them, her friend dryly said: “They won’t be there.” I didn’t believe it at first, I thought the girl was joking. And after the registration in the registry office I realized that she wasn’t joking. At the restaurant, the bride’s great-aunt and her husband were seated as the mother and father.
When the official part of the wedding was over, I did find out why the bride’s parents were gone. Turns out that Nick just didn’t invite them. Told them there would be no wedding. There would be a simple registration and an inexpensive youth party. She lied to my parents. I told her it was cruel of her. She nonchalantly replied: “At least they do not embarrass me now his presence. They do not stutter, and do not drive noisily, as in the village. And you yourself do not see what contingent gathered here! How would I invite them here? Can you imagine yourself in my place?
I didn’t answer, I understood. I would never do that to my parents.
