Second Veil
Same church. Same strong and safe arm leading your way down the aisle.
You wanted other flowers, different from calla lilies you used the first time.
Same faces from a side. Different faces from the other one.
Same smile waiting for you at the end of your red runaway, different face to dress it up.
You chose different readings, different songs and different location.
This time you chose even a different time. In the morning, not in the afternoon.
You are happy and you are scared.
You are scared because these same steps you are taking to your new husband will lead you away from this town. You are going to live where he lives. To the North. And you will be alone. Alone until will come back home. You ought to start again. To create a new yourself somehow.
And you are happy because these same steps you are taking to the altar will you lead to another chance, another opportunity. Because a happy life is a life without regret.
And you look around you, moving gently your neck so you can see what it would look like encountering the eyes of the same people, from one side, and the those different ones from the other side.
You have done the deed.
You are a wife for the second time. With a second wedding dress, different from the first one.
Now the veil is longer, the skirt is wider.
Now your hair are short and there are not curls or ripples any further.
The first time your smile was tense into an emotion you couldn’t call by name.
You knew him since too long.
For the two of you, getting married was the only thing to do.
When you have been hanging out for too long, you need a fresh start and then you get married. Even if he is the eternal Peter-pan-syndrome man, searching for the most extreme sport, even if you know you are going to live into the same building of his lover, even if you will discover it afterwards. By chance, following your ancestral instinct of salvation. Or because you have just to realize a known ending.
The first time you gave you the opportunity to think he would have changed. You just thought his nature would have never get him away from you.
And now, here you are: a second veil, a second ceremony, a second chance.
A second party. A second honeymoon.
You believe in this new joy. All this matters. You are laying into a new world because you believe your biggest desire will be fulfilled. You believe you will become mother, this time.
After the betrayal, after having come back you home, because you don’t know where to go, after having hiring the best layer to get the annulment of that “I do”, after all, after your restarting by attending an ordinary salsa class, here you are: a second veil and a second wedding dress, but a first true chance to give life. To feel it growing soft in your belly. Recommencing. Really.
You got your first wedding religious annulment, in front of God, because a holy court exists to deal with it. How many years was you able to erase? Two, maybe three of coexistence. It doesn’t matter now you gave “till-death-do-you-part” a new measuring system. And this because your untamed Peter-pan did not want kids. And if you get married in front of God, you must have kids. This is the duty of the broom and the bride: building up a family.
Now you are living in another house, far away from your previous world and you start hoping. Because what you want the most is becoming mother. Being you and your kid in your new kingdom.
You get pregnant.
Gynaecologist first inspection.
Everything proceeds well. There is a little black hole animating your gut. It is beating, strong and stubborn.
Weeks pass by and another routine inspection comes.
“I can not hear the heartbeat”.
Ejection procedure: curettage. Sorrow. They are cleaning you from life inside you
And again. Same little beating hole, same hope flapping.
Same routine inspection.
“I cannot hear the heartbeat.”
Same silent tear drops going down.
Medical examinations, analysis.
And again. You get pregnant.
Same routine
But the mixture of joy and unbelievable hope starts being flayed by despair.
And the day comes again.
You are waiting your turn in the waiting room. You are waiting for a new-old judgement.
It is your turn. You lie down on the couch and show up your yet-gone-away-life belly.
You are feeling how cold is the randomly sprayed gel on your skin.
And then the always-usual hand moving that seismograph to detect life waves inside you
You are catching the eye of that man. One turn, another turn, and the again another one.
He looks like an unbelieving gold miner: they have told him that feud was rich.
Neither does he can believe that.
You keep him out of embarrassment.
“There is no pulse, isn’t it?”
