asked her to play it again, and she did, and Sandra asked for a third time and she said no, maybe later, and smiled as if she were a little embarrassed at how proud you and Sandra were. Sandra took a photograph of you sitting next to Eva with a big smile on your face. (She had the photograph printed the following day, and on the back she wrote Proudest dad in the world. The photo is now on the fridge door.)
Later in the evening came dinner. You and Sandra gave them the news as soon as dinner was over. Eva cried, and Rick put his arm around her and she asked the same question over and over, the How long do you have question that nobody can rightly put their finger on, and you kept thinking, you kept thinking, if Eva’s music is in the world, no matter what happens you’re going to be okay.
Eva cried, and she hugged you to make you feel better, but for her own comfort she turned to Rick. You can’t quite put into words how you felt then. It wasn’t jealousy, but more of a sense of redundancy. You were the person who used to check under her bed for dragons. You were there for her when she thought her world was falling apart after she backed the car into the garage wall. You hugged her until her tears dried up after the cat died. Now you’re the Broken Man, not the broken man of Eva’s song, but broken nonetheless. Eva has Rick now, and she is going to need him. And really, you should be thankful for that.
It was Rick’s idea to bring the wedding forward. Rick, who you didn’t like so much when you first met him because he pulled up in his car with that god-awful hip-hop music playing, which reminds me, J-Man (that’s my hip-hop name for you, and my hip-hop name for the Madness Journal is Maddy J.), reminds me that you hate, absolutely hate hip-hop music and if you’re listening to it in the future with your jeans halfway down your ass then you really are too far gone to be helped. You’re a Springsteen kind of guy. And the Stones. The Doors. You once wrote a whole novel listening to nothing but Pink Floyd. The music you listen to is immortal.
Rick. Rick and his damn hip-hop, blaring from the stereo like he was DJing the whole neighborhood. Eva in the passenger seat making goo-goo eyes at him, and you did good, J-Man, you didn’t tell him to turn it off otherwise you’d get your gun (nonexistent, mind you) and put a bullet into his stereo. He did not make a great first impression, and all you could think was that if this guy married your daughter and they had kids, that’s where your estate was going. Things got better after that—either the hip-hop was a phase, or Eva said something to him, because he kept the music low and started pulling up his jeans, and now—well, now you like him. He’s a good guy. They’ve been living together for the last two years, and now the wedding. Maybe it was Eva’s music that changed him.
Bringing the wedding forward is for you. Hard to walk Eva down the aisle and give her away if you can’t even remember her name. So your daughter, the most amazing girl, is shifting the biggest day of her life so you can enjoy it. It was going to be in a year or so, but now it’s going to be in a few months. A man more suspicious than you might think Rick wants to get a ring on her before your trip to the moon so he gets a cut of what you leave behind. He may as well—in a year’s time you’re not going to care either way.
So there you have it—already your wife and daughter are spending their evenings planning things, sometimes with Rick, sometimes without him, and sometimes Rick will come over and the two of you will watch whatever game is on TV, or play darts in the garage, just shooting the breeze. They’re struggling to find somewhere on short notice for the ceremony but are still hopeful.
Good news—Eva is getting married. You can’t believe how grown up she is now. Walking her down the aisle is going to be one of the proudest days of your life.
Bad news—Sandra mentioned
Later in the evening came dinner. You and Sandra gave them the news as soon as dinner was over. Eva cried, and Rick put his arm around her and she asked the same question over and over, the How long do you have question that nobody can rightly put their finger on, and you kept thinking, you kept thinking, if Eva’s music is in the world, no matter what happens you’re going to be okay.
Eva cried, and she hugged you to make you feel better, but for her own comfort she turned to Rick. You can’t quite put into words how you felt then. It wasn’t jealousy, but more of a sense of redundancy. You were the person who used to check under her bed for dragons. You were there for her when she thought her world was falling apart after she backed the car into the garage wall. You hugged her until her tears dried up after the cat died. Now you’re the Broken Man, not the broken man of Eva’s song, but broken nonetheless. Eva has Rick now, and she is going to need him. And really, you should be thankful for that.
It was Rick’s idea to bring the wedding forward. Rick, who you didn’t like so much when you first met him because he pulled up in his car with that god-awful hip-hop music playing, which reminds me, J-Man (that’s my hip-hop name for you, and my hip-hop name for the Madness Journal is Maddy J.), reminds me that you hate, absolutely hate hip-hop music and if you’re listening to it in the future with your jeans halfway down your ass then you really are too far gone to be helped. You’re a Springsteen kind of guy. And the Stones. The Doors. You once wrote a whole novel listening to nothing but Pink Floyd. The music you listen to is immortal.
Rick. Rick and his damn hip-hop, blaring from the stereo like he was DJing the whole neighborhood. Eva in the passenger seat making goo-goo eyes at him, and you did good, J-Man, you didn’t tell him to turn it off otherwise you’d get your gun (nonexistent, mind you) and put a bullet into his stereo. He did not make a great first impression, and all you could think was that if this guy married your daughter and they had kids, that’s where your estate was going. Things got better after that—either the hip-hop was a phase, or Eva said something to him, because he kept the music low and started pulling up his jeans, and now—well, now you like him. He’s a good guy. They’ve been living together for the last two years, and now the wedding. Maybe it was Eva’s music that changed him.
Bringing the wedding forward is for you. Hard to walk Eva down the aisle and give her away if you can’t even remember her name. So your daughter, the most amazing girl, is shifting the biggest day of her life so you can enjoy it. It was going to be in a year or so, but now it’s going to be in a few months. A man more suspicious than you might think Rick wants to get a ring on her before your trip to the moon so he gets a cut of what you leave behind. He may as well—in a year’s time you’re not going to care either way.
So there you have it—already your wife and daughter are spending their evenings planning things, sometimes with Rick, sometimes without him, and sometimes Rick will come over and the two of you will watch whatever game is on TV, or play darts in the garage, just shooting the breeze. They’re struggling to find somewhere on short notice for the ceremony but are still hopeful.
Good news—Eva is getting married. You can’t believe how grown up she is now. Walking her down the aisle is going to be one of the proudest days of your life.
Bad news—Sandra mentioned
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