Fiction by Cindy Sams
Cindy Sams is a Georgia writer whose work explores Southern identity, family mythology, and generational survival through scene-driven and hybrid forms. Her essays have appeared in Under the Gum Tree, Reckon Review, The Brevity Blog, Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature, and elsewhere. She lives in Macon, where the dead rarely stay quiet.
The Ghost Chair
I.
Standing on the Promises
Generations of matrimonial trauma teeter on kitten heels.
See my daughter Bonnie on her wedding day, eyelashes feathered out to here and a stick-straight dress down to there. She’s minutes from marrying the love of her life in a woodsy Colorado venue so remote Uber won’t risk the drive.
I’m the mother of the bride. That’s me at the head of the line, propped up by my emotional-support nephews. Adam will walk me down the aisle. Josh will give Bonnie away.
I’m calm. I’m collected. All emotions except joy are packed tight under a smile that feels store-bought.
The string quartet strikes up Storybook Love. The Princess Bride. My patent leather kitten heels wobble. Endless love? Faithfulness? I didn’t learn those concepts at my mother’s knee.
Mama promised the same vows to seven men across three states and kept not a one. Me? Twice a Georgia-born bride. The first marriage ended with his death; the second in a quickie divorce.
I grip Josh’s arm, balancing the weight of history on my shoulders.
If you charted our family’s marriages, it wouldn’t be a family tree, it’d be a quiz in Reader’s Digest.
II.
Quiz What Kind of Bride Are You
(Circle all that apply. No wrong answers. Just wrong husbands.)
1. How many times have you worn white?
a. Once, and it still fits.
b. Twice, give or take.
c. I’ve lost count, honey.
2. Your signature aisle song:
a. “Here Comes the Sun”
b. “Stand by Your Man”
c. “Da-Da-Da-DUMB”
3. Your bridal bouquet is best described as:
a. Roses and baby’s breath.
b. Carnations from the Piggly Wiggly.
c. Cigarette smoke and Aqua Net.
4. Your vows usually last until:
a. Death do us part.
b. The ink dries on the license.
c. Payday.
Results:
Mostly A’s: Congratulations, you’re a blushing bride.
Mostly B’s: You’re making do.
Mostly C’s: Husbands as trading cards. A deck Mama reshuffled seven times.
Somewhere beyond the trees, Bonnie is fastening the dress that will carry her toward a different answer.
III.
Mama’s Accordion Interlude
Did speaking the words aloud make them true?
I do. I did. I don’t.
The wedding musician cradled his accordion, pumping out “It’s Now or Never.” The bellows wheezed like they were on their last breath.
Mama, forty and tipsy, faced groom number seven.
The minister’s boots gleamed, his voice a syrupy mash-up of Omar Sharif and a South Georgia preacher.
“Will you haaaaaave this man…to live together in hoooooly maaaaatrimony?”
“I do. I mean, I will.” Mama snickered, eyes glassy, laugh loose.
Grandmama’s stare found mine across the folding chairs. Her raised glass of Southern Comfort met my gin and tonic. Our toast drifted through the smoke: Bob. Billy. Ken. Dale. Ric. Dale again. Michael, the bearded coke addict with hands faster than his excuses.
“Mind your own business,” Mama told me, dabbing makeup over the bruises. “I’m a grown-ass woman same as you.”
Weeks earlier, I’d been nineteen in a Presbyterian chapel, lace scratching my arms, candles dripping, mother-in-law sniffling.
Maybe the whole thing reads best the way the newspaper would’ve written it: clipped, tidy, stripped of truth.
IV.
Wedding Announcement
Miss XXX, age nineteen, of Macon, Georgia, is pleased to announce her marriage to A Pretty Nice Guy.
The bride, who knows absolutely nothing about matrimony except what she’s witnessed at her mama’s side, wore borrowed doubts and a secondhand dream. She carried a bouquet of questions with the stems still wrapped in butcher paper.
The reception consisted of warm Cokes, leftover cake, and the bride’s whispered promise that she’d never end up like the women before her.
The couple will make their home in uncertainty, furnished with hand-me-down expectations and a hope chest full of maybes.
V.
Racing the Clock
After thirteen minutes, I clutched my wilting roses, wondering what I had promised and why.
The lace on my borrowed dress rasped against my nineteen-year-old arms. Roses and baby’s breath quivered in my grip, their butcher paper stems still damp.
The pipe organ barked some bossy hymn approved by the Presbyterians. Thirty-six heads swiveled to watch me march.
Step one. Pause.
Step two. Pause.
Step twenty-two. Run.
At the altar, my fiancé balled his fists, bouncing them against his thighs. No greeting. No smile. He carried silence like a bouquet.
The minister boomed: Dearly Beloved.
Love is patient. Love is kind.
Marriage is not to be entered into lightly.
Blah, blah, blah.
Cousin Tracie timed the ceremony: thirteen minutes flat.
Hotels skip the thirteenth floor. Judas sat in the thirteenth chair. What if we’d skipped this whole thing?
VI.
Wedding Program Bonnie’s Day
Processional
The bride, steady and radiant, walks an aisle paved with all the chances her mama never had.
Officiant’s Remarks
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered not to recycle old vows, but to begin fresh ones.”
(Mama’s ghost still leans in, whispering the wrong lines. Today, I pray louder.)
Readings
From the Book of Promises Kept.
From the Gospel of “May she never doubt her worth.”
From a mother’s heart that once cracked with the weight but still beats hope.
Exchange of Vows
The bride and groom pledge what they mean, not what they’ve memorized.
(In the pews, I vow too: to let go, to believe love can last.)
VII.
The Ghost Chair
Gratitude? Heroism? I am blindsided by love and undeserved grace.
She did. She does. She will.
Bonnie’s frenzied wedding planner signals it’s time.
My grip tightens on Adam’s arm as we step inside. The solemnity and my aching feet curb my usual urge to rush down the aisle.
Our white plastic seats are marked with name cards. The empty chair to my left bears the name of Bonnie’s dad.
The absent presence. The ghost in our midst. The ache of loss expands, retracts, settles in for the ceremony. For richer, for poorer. For better, for worse. How could anyone know what worse means until it arrives? Are you going to stop drinking? No? I’m leaving and taking Bonnie with me … I’m sorry, he’s gone. He shot himself …
I sit, rustling my taffeta skirt, willing the past to get back in its place.
The air in the room shifts. We rise as the bride crosses the threshold, approaches what passes for an altar in this A-framed space and stands next to her intended. The officiant, spiritual if not religious, speaks at length about ceremony and community.
The couple, she says, wants to acknowledge their parents and the roles they played in this “unfolding journey” the couple has undertaken. She begins with me.
I brace for the impact, fearing a call-out. A rejection. A rebuke.
“Bonnie says that her mother is her hero—that she is the strongest, most loving, (and most stubborn) woman she knows,” the minister says. “Bonnie is grateful for the way her mom has always believed in her and encouraged her to be her best self.”
For once, our story isn’t about what’s lost but about what’s gained. Maybe this was the hinge, the day our family history turned toward grace instead of grief.
May her vows mark the turning of the page, the start of a story that refuses to repeat mine.