The Office of Historical Corrections

Content Warning: This story contains domestic and gun violence.

Dori has designed her wedding around the colors of the rainbow, and she contemplates how to incorporate Noah’s Ark. At the bachelorette party, the bridesmaids—who are each dressed in an assigned color of the rainbow—go to local bars.

Rena, a good friend of the groom, JT, goes to the bachelorette party, but she has an uncomfortable relationship with Dori. She met JT five years earlier in Ghana when they were quarantined together after threats of biological warfare on their plane. As two of the only Americans on the plane, Rena and JT bonded. Now, Rena can’t shake the feeling that Dori distrusts her. She believes that Dori assumes something romantic happened between Rena and JT in their past.

Rena sneaks away from the bachelorette party early. Back at her hotel, she runs into Michael, one of the groomsmen. The two talk and end up sleeping together in his hotel room. Rena wonders if this might make Dori feel better since it would show she’s not interested in JT.

As Rena sleeps in Michael’s bed, she has nightmares about her sister, Elizabeth. Rena was the maid of honor at Elizabeth’s wedding to their childhood friend, Connor. A year later, Connor saw a repair man leaving their home and assumed that Elizabeth was cheating on him. He shot her in the head, and while she survived, she has brain damage. Rena has not visited Elizabeth in the hospital in three years. She knows from her mother that Elizabeth is slowly making progress toward speech.

At 4:00 am, Rena leaves Michael’s bed, afraid that she will wake up screaming from her nightmares. In the hallway, she sees JT getting into the elevator with a duffel bag. He tells her that he cannot go through with the wedding. Rena thinks of Dori and how excited she has been about the wedding and attempts to stop JT. He insults her, saying that he used to think she was brave but now thinks that she has “nothing in [her] life” (34). Angry, she decides to let him leave.

The following morning, Dori comes to Rena’s room and tells her that JT is gone. Dori scans the room looking for signs of JT, as if Rena might be responsible. When Dori asks where he went, Rena lies and says that JT planned on going to a cabin in Ohio. Dori makes Rena drive with her on the three-hour trip from Indiana to Ohio.

On the drive, Dori is hostile at first, but she relaxes when she sees a text from Michael on Rena’s phone asking about last night. Rena says that something could happen between her and Michael, thinking about how a relationship that started because of Dori’s wedding would make Dori happy.

Rena thinks about her love life. After several failed relationships, she actively pursued married men and dangerous one-night stands. She believed that there must be something “unlovable” about her and sought to ruin others’ relationships without remorse. She admits to herself that she would have had sex with JT—they shared a bed in quarantine but did nothing sexual—but she didn’t “because the circumstances were so strange” (40). Lately, Rena finds that she holds less anger toward men and is more forgiving. She has realized that they, too, are “broken.”

Rena and Dori get breakfast at a rest stop. A man in McDonald’s notices Dori’s “Bride” T-shirt and asks about her wedding, but Dori makes up a story about them being in a band called “Bride.” Rena joins her, and they invent names, show dates, and an entire tour for their fake band. When they get back to the car, Rena confesses that she lied about knowing where JT is. She admits that the address she gave Dori is her sister’s old house.

On the drive back, Rena assumes that Dori is angry or embarrassed. However, Dori drives them to a water park. Rena tries to apologize, but Dori does not say anything, instead leading her to a line for the tallest waterslide. Rena is nervous about the slide’s height on the way up, but on the way down, she feels “genuine joy.”

When Rena checks her phone, she has messages from JT, who has gone back to the hotel and wants to go through with the wedding. She shows Dori, but Dori shrugs it off, and they put their phones back into their lockers. The two spend the rest of the day at the park, eating food and floating in a wave pool. Dori buys a photo of the two of them on the waterslide with the caption “Wish You Were Here.”

Rena is happy at the water park, and she thinks about how long it has been since she did something like this. She remembers how happy Elizabeth was when they went to a water park as children.