by Mikaela Brewer for The 44 North, Senior Editor
The willow tree’s branches stroked the living room window, causing the setting sun to twinkle across Raven’s prom dress. Carefully propped on a hanger, it was hooked to the top ledge of the swinging door separating the kitchen and living room. For a moment, Grandpa Wood—as Raven always called him—blended the music of the gentle window tapping with the door’s inability to be still or closed. He was fiddling with the dress’s delicate corset back, stringing the tie through with practiced hands.
“Did all the sauce wash out?” Raven asked jokingly, as she skipped down the stairs in her slip and stockings, hair still in curlers.
“Most of it. But you’ll never forget to toss the spaghetti on the wall before adding the sauce, will you?”
Raven laughed, shaking her head.
“I didn’t make the loopholes big enough to easily take the ribbon out and thread it back through. You’re lucky I’m good at this.” Grandpa Wood chuckled. “Okay. Arms up!”
“Careful of the curlers!” Raven said, giggling. She stepped towards Grandpa Wood as he tenderly lifted the dress off the hanger and slid it over her head.
“Turn around,” he said, motioning to lace up the corset. “How tight?”
“Well, I want to be able to breathe, but make it pretty.”
Grandpa Wood winked, knowingly. “So when does Sari get here? Her flowers for the tux are in the fridge.”
Raven blushed. “In twenty, I think.”
Grandpa Wood tied and arranged the bow, then turned Raven to face him. His smile said all she needed to hear.
Raven’s dress was a shade darker than her near-black hair, but shimmered amber in the light like her eyes. The sleeves were black lace, the corset ribbon amber, and the hand-stitched bodice detailed tiny raven feathers and moths. Grandpa Wood, who hadn’t stitched a dress in over twenty years since he retired, had completely outdone himself. He’d even tucked a few bits of wild bergamot into the corset, the aroma of which filled the doorway between the living room and kitchen.
“You better get those curlers out.”
“Would you help me? Just like mom would have?”
Grandpa Wood smiled through the sadness that emerged first, but it showed in his crow’s feet. “Only if I can tell you a story.”
Raven nodded, taking a careful seat on her grandfather’s soft blue armchair. She needed something to distract her from feeling nervous.
“Don’t worry. The dress fabric is pretty resilient. You’ve got to be able to dance, right?” He cleared his throat before beginning the story and started unfastening the tiny curlers nestled in Raven’s thick hair.
“Since it’s your prom night, how about a story with Theo?”
Stories about Theo were Raven’s favourite. Theo was Grandpa Wood’s high school and university sweetheart, and Raven liked to imagine that, if possible, they’d be together today. But Theo died from HIV/AIDS at just twenty-one. Somehow, though Raven had never met him, it felt as if he was still alive—just somewhere out of reach. Grandpa Wood’s stories were that vivacious; he loved Theo that much.
“On our prom night…well, I’m sure you can imagine. Our folks didn’t know we weren’t going to the prom. We dressed up all right, suit and all, but said we were meeting some friends there instead of picking up a date. Theo and I had other plans.” He winked for effect.
“An hour from here, near the reservation where I grew up in Southview, there was a lagoon with a weeping willow. It’s unusual for ours to be here, let alone more that far North, so someone must have planted it in the little park. Just like your mom planted ours. We’d hung lights the night before and packed the back of Theo’s rusty truck with snacks and beer—courtesy of your uncle Art. It was warm that night when we arrived around 8:30 p.m. Nearly dark but not quite. Warm enough to swim—without clothes, I might add.”
“Grandpa!” Raven laughed, though not surprised. Her grandfather wasn’t shy.
“Hold still! Or these will turn into burs!”
“Okay, okay. Continue.” Raven settled herself into the chair and held still.
“Well, I won’t tell you the rest, but we had a great time. Don’t you get any ideas! That swamp by the market isn’t a close second to our little spot back then. It’s contaminated with goodness knows what.”
“I can imagine,” Raven said as Grandpa Wood took the last curler from her hair and fluffed the curls. “Did your friends want to come with you?”
“You know, I don’t know. I was afraid to ask, to be honest. Theo and I weren’t exactly an item for public viewing. To tell you the truth, I’d be afraid to ask those same people now, even though we’re grown.”
Raven looked sad and fiddled with her dress.
As if reading her mind, Grandpa Wood replied, “I tell you this story, though, to remind you that our pain is so often centred as the only valuable thing we have to give. That much hasn’t changed between my generation and yours. Maybe it has visibility-wise. But for folks like us, our romantic joy is sacred, resistance, and just as important. In context, were Theo and I sad to be making-shifting our prom, alone? Sure. Theo’s ashes are there, you know? I scattered them across that little clearing by the water. Haven’t been back since. But we were immensely happy that night. It was the happiest evening of my life. And that’s worth something—a story worth telling, don’t you think?”
Raven nodded, an idea foaming like little waves on the shore of a lagoon. The doorbell rang just before the kettle for Grandpa Wood’s tea whistled.
***
“Where are we going?” Grandpa Wood asked a few days later, a kitchen towel covering his eyes in the front seat of Sari’s parents’ Honda Civic. They’d fastened the towel at the back with a clothespin.
“You’ll know soon,” Sari said, fingers strumming the steering wheel to the tune of RAYE’s song, “Joy,” blasting from the radio. The sun was nearly down, but it made Sari’s brown skin and purple blush pop. She glanced in the rearview mirror at Raven in the back seat and winked.
Raven smiled, clapping her hands silently with excitement.
In a few minutes, they turned onto a soft dirt drive, stopped the car, and climbed out to help Grandpa Wood. When Raven opened the passenger door, he was shivering.
“What’s wrong?” Raven asked, concerned, as Sari came to her side.
Grandpa Wood half-smiled. “There’s a hole in this rag, my dear.”
Raven’s heart felt like a boulder resting on her stomach. He knew where they were.
“But it wouldn’t have made a difference if it were brand new. It seems my body remembers how cold the water was when we jumped in.”
Sari and Raven helped Grandpa Wood out of the car and unpinned the dishcloth. He took both of their hands, one on each side, and smiled.
“Thank you. This is very thoughtful.” But he seemed sad, and in a way, hurt, as if his loneliest memory had appeared before him and he hadn’t wanted to face it again. Sari and Raven exchanged glances, unsure of what they were about to do next. From where they stood by the car, the top of the weeping willow was just visible, its full body standing in a small valley.
Carefully avoiding rocks and tree roots, they walked past a playground toward the gentle slope that smoothed into grass. When they crossed the curve’s threshold and looked down the hill, the sound ceased to be protected by the bowl of earth where the lagoon was nestled. Grandpa Wood’s mouth opened nearly as wide as his eyes.
Beneath them, at the bottom of the hill, were Raven and Sari’s high school friend group and at least twenty seniors from the area where they lived—some Grandpa Wood’s old friends, some soon-to-be new friends.
“We asked around at homes and senior centres, and invited as many folks from the 2SLGBTQIA+ community as we could,” Sari said, grinning. A huge glittering banner waved from a nearby maple, reading “Happy Pride Prom!” Three picnic tables were covered in food. The high school tech team had set up small speakers, which played 50s hits. And, once again, fairy lights hung from the bows of the weeping willow.
Raven finally spoke. “I remember you saying that sadness and grief aren’t the only things worth feeling. Joy is right there beside them, often in the same place.”
Grandpa Wood wrapped his arm around Raven and kissed the top of her head. “You’re absolutely right.” He reached over and hugged Sari, too.
“Can I show you something else?” Raven asked.
“There’s more?” Grandpa Wood replied, genuinely surprised.
Raven nodded, offering her hand. They walked down the slope, past the small party, to the other side of the weeping willow.
“We were going to pick wildflowers to decorate. But I don’t think we need to. Is this the spot?”
Grandpa Wood stared, his eyes scanning a bloom of forget-me-nots about the size of two people, scattered across the little clearing. He nodded, eyes welling with tears.
Raven reached up, adjusted his periwinkle tie, and hugged him tight.
“They move us forward, too,” Grandpa Wood whispered after a few shaky breaths. “Grief and joy together. We can only survive and live when moved by both. That’s how the past keeps living, too. What can’t be alive itself survives inside us.”
“Is that why grief and joy feel so heavy? Theo is alive inside you?”
“Yes, love. And that’s why what you’ve done for me today feels so much like rest; he’s alive inside you now, too.”
