I stroll into the chapel, a place I used to visit only on Sundays with my parents. The day seems like any other day, although my heart screams at me that it is not like that, that from today I will change. My life will change completely. I will be from now on Mrs. Magghio, a full-fledged woman, a wife, and stepmother to a little baby. I will have no say over that house, over that home. As much as I try to pull myself together from this torture, I cannot help biting my lips to avoid crying. Secluded in the castle of the Shady One, fear tightens my chest and prevents me from breathing properly. The air does not reach my lungs easily, and I feel myself suffocating with every step I take. Meanwhile, the wedding march begins to play, but for me, it is a funeral march.
I enter a funeral. To be more specific, mine. Today I will die, and I don’t know how to avoid it.
“Smile, my daughter,” my father asks or perhaps commands me.
I keep thinking about the man who loved me hours before, the one I lost my virginity to, which I treasured for years. Even being with Lucian for so long, I never felt comfortable or ready for such surrender, but with this man, with my future husband, I had no fear! It was like feeling like I belonged by his side right away.
“Don’t be sad. Things are the way they are. Just flow with life.” He seems to think he’s giving me the advice of my life.
I want to screech, bite him, and beat him until I provoke the pain he caused me by deciding for me to marry Dario Magghio. One thing I know for sure: that guy staring at me with his piercing, cold gray eyes from the altar is not by any stretch of the imagination the man I made love to last night.
I don’t care if they’re the same man! God, I lose my mind.
“I can’t,” I mutter.
The lump in my throat becomes harder to contain. I really want to cry.
“You will, Tatiana. You will. Just keep walking, repeat everything the priest tells you, and at the end, say that you agree to marry Dario. It’s not very difficult, is it?”
Oh, father, you have no idea how difficult what you’re asking me is!
“Dad…”
“Walk, Tati. Walk with your head held high. It’s your wedding day. I’m so proud of you and how you’ve led your life.”
“Dad…” Maybe it’s just me hearing it. Perhaps I didn’t say anything and just thought I did.
He’s still normal next to me and with my arm entwined in his. In short, he’s going to hand me over to that man.
“May God’s blessing be with you, may you be able to give me grandchildren, and may you fulfill all the duty you will have being Magghio’s wife, which is yours from now on. You are no longer a girl or a teenager. You will learn the true meaning of sacrifice and adulthood.”
We arrive at where the priest is waiting for us, along with Dario and a young man I don’t know.
With the reputation, Magghio has, no wonder no one wants to be near him.
The people here are from the town, people I grew up with and saw for years. They all want to celebrate my wedding or witness my condemnation.
“I give you my daughter, the most precious treasure I have, my firstborn, the most intelligent and capable of my daughters. I hope you know you are taking a great woman with you.”
“I will keep my word. I will take care of her from now on.” Darío holds out his hand to me as if I am going to hold onto it.
I raise my eyes and look at him, angry. I am mad at him.
How can he talk to me with such coldness?
How can he look me in the face and pretend he’s never been inside me?
He made love to me, for God’s sake!
“Tatiana.” He reaches out a little more with his right hand.
My father taps my hip a little. Reluctantly, I stretch mine out. I feel like I’ve just given myself over to the demons of hell. As if on automatic and slowly, I place my hand on Dario’s. I feel the coldness of his palm. I feel the coldness of his palm. My heart flips as I realize that I didn’t feel like this last night. This icy chill was not the one that ran through my body; I felt a different tingle than this one. This one is painful and is a reminder of what will become my life from today on.
Pain and suffering.
Teresa scoffed at me. As for her, this is paradise. Besides, according to her own words, it is the right thing to marry a man who will support me financially without any need, one who will give me everything I want. According to her, I won’t even have to ask for it. That’s what she wants for her life. Maybe it’s what she wants because she is young. After all, she doesn’t yet know what it is to love truly. She laughed at my reality, at my pain, at the grief that grips my heart and now strikes it. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be Tatiana of Magghio. I don’t want to be the wife of the Shady One.
He squeezes my hand, and the priest begins to speak.
“Dear brothers…” I see the movement of his lips, but I do not hear what he declares.
Teresa is too young to know that this is not life. It is not what any woman should accept or have happened to her. In my case, I weigh the circumstances. I think about what will happen to my mother, father, and sister if I don’t get married.
What will I do? Will I leave them in the street? Will I stay with them to suffer hardships and needs? Will I see remorse and anger in my father’s eyes if I do not marry? Will I see uneasiness and loss of a future in my mother’s eyes if I do not fulfill this marriage to Dario? Will I do not allow my sister to go to college or get a degree? So many things influence me to stand here before the priest and all present. A lot influences me to get married.
“Tatiana?” articulates the priest. I try to understand what he means. “Do you accept?”
“Accept what, Father?”
I feel the tears roll down my cheeks, cold and heavy.
Darío tenses beside me, and I release his hand to entwine mine.
His coldness is like a heavy mist that takes up all the space, the air, my surroundings, and what little quiet I allow myself to have.
“My daughter, do you take Darío to be his wife, his lover, his life partner, and the mother of his children? To care for him and look after his interests? To accompany him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health?”
Shit, this is worse than a threat. It’s a goddamn ultimatum!
I always read in novels those words. For as long as I’ve been conscious, I’ve listened to priests, pastors, or any officiant utter those questions.
When I was in high school, I smiled as I read books where the protagonists got married and had happily ever after; ate partridges and watched rainbows in the late afternoon or went to the beaches to enjoy a rich sunrise or sunset. Seeing the priest is waiting for an answer, however, makes me want to say no. I want to refuse and scream at him.
I want to refuse and shout to the world that I don’t want to marry this man, that I don’t want to be Mrs. Magghio, and that I don’t know him at all. Even though I gave him my body the night before, he doesn’t seem to remember it or to have felt what I did. Most of all, he doesn’t seem to remember the words that came from his lips when he was making love to me. They were words thrown into the air. Maybe they are used to make women loosen the barriers a little, and men have it easier.
I was a fool to believe that love could come to me all of a sudden!
I look back; my parents are in the front row, and there are about fifteen other people, all with familiar faces. My sister is next to me, as she is my maid of honor. According to her, every bride needs one. Otherwise, it’s not a real wedding.
“Tati…” She looks at me wistfully.
Even with the veil on my face, I know she realizes my hesitation. She knows me.
I think of the future she will have if I don’t get married.
What if my father’s shady business dealings reach our house? What if those men want to collect the lost money with blood? No, I can’t let anything happen to my family.
The silence, the chapel begins to be almost palpable. I see my parents again; my mom’s hands are clenched, and she looks at me nervously. She has put on her best dress for this ceremony. I know that, although the root of my marriage is not the conventional one, she must be excited, as her eldest daughter is about to get married.
I can’t think about it anymore.
Torturing myself with the inevitable is absurd.
My heart has already psyched itself up and knows this is the right thing to do.
“I accept,” I blurt out quickly. The priest’s eyes widen as he hears my response. “I accept,” I say this time more slowly.
“Perfect, daughter.”
He observes Dario and asks him the same question.
He answers confidently and without a second thought, “I accept.”
Maybe he didn’t say it loud, but in my mind, it sounded like a lion claiming his female, as if marking a beginning and an end to my existence and freedom.
“Then I pronounce you man and wife.” He motions with his hands and points to Dario. “You may kiss the bride.”
I know what’s going to happen.
God, I already kissed him a few hours ago!
What comes after “I now pronounce you man and wife” is the right thing to do. I’ve seen this in movies countless times. I’ve been to weddings, not enough to make a list, but enough to know that kissing is the next step.
Dario turns to me, and his hands go to my face.
I stand cold and not moving an inch of my body.
He pulls back my veil, and his mouth grimaces painfully.
I must look awful.
I spent the whole wedding crying without a sob. The tears must have ruined all the makeup.
Fuck him! This is what he’ll see every morning when he wakes up: a crying woman forced to marry him to pay off a debt. If he wanted a wife, then let him have one!
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tells me just before he puts his lips on mine. Meanwhile, his hands are on my cheeks, and his thumbs make a slight circular motion.
I open my mouth, but something is wrong with me. I don’t feel the fire I felt last night being in his arms. My racing heart doesn’t beat as fast. My hands don’t burn from hugging him and wrapping around his neck. I don’t feel anything.
He pulls away from me a little, and his gaze remains just as empty.
One thing is for sure: this is not the man I made love to last night. This is not the one who loved me like no one else and the one who called me his dragonfly. This is not my mysterious lover.
So… who did I just marry?