She
began her narrative, while I knelt next to the bed she rested on, in a sonorous
tone that bore stark contrast to her then withering disposition: “I was seated
at a cream coated, wooden vanity, which matched the bed, laying in the backdrop
of the scene, exactly. The deep chestnut wooden floors were without a scratch
and the walls had a light brown paper, with a floral design, until about
halfway down the wall when the paper was met with a cream colored chair rail
and the wall was finished in a brown only slightly darker. My reflection was
imitated in the looking glass attached to the table; the woman staring back at
me held about her an obvious beauty— of cream colored skin, silky black hair
held in tight curls framing her delicate face and spilling down her back, high
cheek bones painted with a rose colored rouge, and thin dark red lips— but
something appeared aloof and detached in her gaze as she inspected me. The only
entity which tainted the semblance of the avaricious girl in the mirror was a
swollen bruise retained in her right eye. Tears smothered my eyes as I glared
down at a newly placed ornament, located on the ring finger of my left hand.”
With seemingly youthful tenacity, as if to
brazenly protest her inevitable demise, she continued. “The vanity held small
trinkets, such as stationaries and ink for letters, a jewelry box, and a small
container of perfume. The aroma of the bouquet permeated the thick air of
Southern Georgia. There were four drawers— two on each side. On each drawer
there was a round brass handle encircled in a cream crown of flower detailing
in the wood. A container of white powder placed in front of the mirror was open
with a large brush standing adjacent.
“In my hand was a tear stained letter,
dated the previous day, reading:
‘My dearest Anne,
Many
trials have plagued me on my way to you. The only article that I will assure
you of is my eternal and inevitable love for you. That being said: I wish you
great joy in your new marriage. The obeisance I hold towards you is of a great
multitude; so great that if I believed you were truly happy and this was truly
a good match, then I would not have allowed myself to send you this letter on
the day of your bridal ceremony. But I do not believe that you are truly happy.
This arrangement has been made to improve your social standing and economic
holdings- that is all. I love you. Where you could have had a marriage with me,
you will have strictly an arrangement with him- and that is all it will ever
be.
So many nights I have been filled with
indignation for not being handsome enough, or wealthy enough to deserve you,
but I did deserve you. If you are so paltry to let such negligible specifics
concern you, then you shall never be happy in life. I beg of you to consider my
offer of engagement one last time.
Yours,
John’
“The saccharine adulations, which my new
husband had spoken only days before, had turned into abrasive harangues the
moment that we were left alone together. If only I had read this letter, from
my dearest John, the day before, instead of casting it off, then I would have
been able to repent the rejection, which was now despondent of remedy. When I
think of how I broke that poor man’s heart, it breaks my own. I was no longer
the young girl that was shrouded in innocence and goodness; she was dead. In
her place lay a woman who was guilt-ridden and tormented by the ghost of this
girl, for whom everyone seemed to care so deeply. For when one is young the
soul has not had time to wither and perish in its virtue. I had grown to hate
her, for the reason that I simply aspired that I could defile time and be
reunited with her again. Forlornly, she was not strong enough.
My eyes had swollen with tears, as I began
to understand the brevity of my mother’s final words. “Why had I allowed myself
to be a vain slave to beauty? I will now have to survive a lifetime of horror
only to be cast off in death, enduring an eternity of a hectic second circle of the lustful in hell; its occupants pointlessly
pushing boulders together only to crash into each other time and time again in
a marvelous effort to distract themselves from the avarice and prodigality of
their mortal lives.” I recognized these few lines from the works of Dante and
inwardly wept imagining my mother’s proposal.
“Coming out of the trance, I checked the
time on an old grandfather clock that sat in the corner. The hours seemed to
have flown by, as it was now half past four; my husband would be home in nearly
half an hour. The tick of the second hand seemed to keep me sane and the swing
of the pendulum was hypnotizing. Slowly, with hands shaking, I excused myself
from the dressing table and took out a portmanteau, which had been veiled by
the bed.
“I prayed it was not too late to remedy
this. I would pack my bags and leave, find John and we would run away together.
I would explain to him that I had never meant to hurt him; explain to him how
much pressure I had been under due to my family; explain to him how he was
right and my life was turning out horribly. I packed the suitcase to the rim,
with all of my possessions of value and a few sets of clothes. I wore a bonnet
as I carried the luggage down the stairs of the small house I had moved in to the
day before. I walked out the door, without as much as a glance behind me.
“The front porch was what every girl dreamt
that her initial house would be. It was painted the purest white and was shaded
with an overhang and a large cedar oak tree, surrounded by vibrant green grass,
all encompassed by a white picket fence. There was a swinging bench where I had
imagined my husband and I drinking iced tea or lemonade whilst our children
played in the yard climbing trees and chasing each other.
“There was no one occupying the street. It
was a grey and rainy day. I held an umbrella in my hand, at my side, while a
steady stream of raindrops fell from the sky. On the ground was the morning’s
newspaper, which I had been too busy consoling myself, to take inside. My
disposition was oddly placid. As I picked up the newspaper I saw a picture of a
familiar face: John. I took up the article and began to read:
‘John
Wilson was born on the twentieth of April in 1885 and proclaimed dead on the
thirteenth of November 1916. Wilson spent the majority of his life in Georgia.
He was unmarried and fathered no known children. The cause of death is unknown—.’
“At the completion of reading, my mood
became melancholy. Before I could help it a thin stream of salted water leaked
from my eye, solemnly falling onto the stationary. I allowed myself to cry this
single tear over perished man, whom I loved, that had become a phantom, now
living only in the few brief lines of lugubrious verses that he had sent to me.
“I took the newspaper inside, undid my
bonnet, and unpacked the clothes that I had so eagerly taken out of my chamber.
I went downstairs, set the table with a lace doily, put a pot roast in the
oven, and then welcomed your father home for dinner- hoping that it would be a
better night than the last. Willingly coming to peace with the horrifically
humdrum, which my life had become.”
At my mother’s pause in the tale of her
tragedy, it was now time for me to interject, “Why would you tell me that?” I
asked; lip quivering and tears threatened to destroy the façade of composure I
had created for myself during this narrative. Her silence left only the
visualization of her fragility, as opposed to the beautiful portrayal of herself
she had described in her earlier years. We were in the same room that had been
her bed chamber since she and my father had first been married. He had died
about a year ago and as the only child, I sat alone, genuflected at my mother’s
death bed hearing her last confession to me.
“Because, in my feverish condition, I
cling on to the certainty that you will not make the same mistakes in life that
I did. I was never happy; I do not wish that for you.” My mother was quiet for
a few moments. The atmosphere was dreadfully callous. A part of me wished that
I had not learned these things about my father; not learned that my mother was merely
mortal and had a past with regrets, but that was unfair of me— even if I was a
result of those transgressions and regrets. Her eyes fixated on mine as if to
penetrate telepathically my feelings before I even knew they existed. Her mea
culpa now climaxed into her then present concern. She continued, “You don’t dislike this man,
but you are not in love with him either. On my death bed, I seek reconciliation
for my faults and to implore that you overlook my offences, which I have burdened
you with. And to tell you emphatically that you are not destined to repeat
those offenses in your own future.”
I looked down at the blue sapphire,
encircled with crystals. I nodded my head without looking up at the woman— that
I realized I knew nothing about. She continued to tell me not to settle for
money, appearance, or even comfort— not to settle for anything except love.
“Please! Promise me,” the fragile woman in
front of me pleaded desperately. “I could not endure eternity if I had to watch
you ruin your life in the same ways that I have. Promise me that you will not
pursue your engagement to this man, or any other man you do not love.”
That night I went out to the garden behind
the house. We had a statue of Mary in a fountain; I sat in front of it and
prayed. I prayed more intently than I ever had in my life. My bare hands
squeezed together, until they turned white in a desperate attempt to say
everything which needed to be said. Brilliant crystals transversely scattered
across a dark blue blanket; that is how I remember the sky that night. I sat
there until the sun rose, in my night dress with my hair in curls. I sat there
savoring every second of fleeting peace that I was able to oblige myself with
because I knew that once morning came I would never feel the same way for a
second time.
Some
moments are so perfect that the second they break, the entire world shatters
around you; that night was my first, but not only experience of this. The
second that I came out of the haze that night had made for me, I was hit with
the reality of my life. And I hated everything about it.
I
sat there that morning patiently awaiting my destiny; the solemnity of the
situation reaching even my hands, which perched upon my lap. The sun rose
early. Its rays casting off radiant oranges, pinks, reds, and purples. The
colors danced together, a formal waltz across the sky. In the center of the
dance was the sun and as it rose the dance began to fade slowly away. The
colors bended and leaned, swayed and replaced, rubbed up against and mixed with
each other. A reflection in the rivulet appeared as jewels gently resting on
the sandy bottom, moving leisurely with the current. The scene vanished as
rapidly as it had appeared.
That night, as I assembled there under the
handsome crystals twinkling down at me and inviting me into their world of
wonder and amazement, I made my mother the promise. A promise that even now
five years later I can still remember, the same way I remember the bristle of
hot air that made the trees dance and lifted my hair up, tempting me to follow
it; or the way I remember the dry lighting crackling across the sky, followed
by an explosion of thunder; the same way I remember the prepense of pricking
the tip of my finger on a sharp rock to watch the blood drip and form a small
pool of scarlet at my feet to remind myself of how beautifully mortal and
finite I am. I promised my mother that I would not repeat her mistakes, but
make my own instead.
That morning when I went back into the
manor, I found my mother dead in her bed. She looked at peace, as if she heard
what I had promised her the previous night— maybe she had. Later that day I
called off my engagement and it was a good thing I had because after that I was
introduced to a new side of the cad, who was quite different than the gentleman
I thought I knew.
Now five years later, I am happy that I
made my mother and myself this promise. Because as I prepare to walk down the
aisle, there is not a doubt in my mind that I have made the right decision. I
stand outside the church doors in a white dress with a bouquet in my hands, but
none of that matters. The thought of spending the reminder of my life with the
man I love is enough for me. The doors to the church open and the congregation
stands. A massive three tier wrought iron chandelier hangs from the ceiling; on
each tier there are four lit candles- one for each quarter- with a drip pan
fastened underneath. Tensile wooden beams lay exposed horizontally across the
ceiling under the large peak the roof forms in the center. The walls were white
and directly in front of me stands the altar, along with my soulmate.
The aisle has been sprinkled with rose
petals. My eyes wander, until they find him and then they are still. He stands
there with a grin on his face— which stretched from ear to ear. His eyes a deep
blue; I found myself lost in yet again. He guided me to him and once I was
there we clasped hands. He never lets go and neither do I, as long as we both
shall live.
