Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Maura
The days leading up to the wedding crawl by in slow motion. On Sunday my parents and I walk to mass. I spot the lady from Switzers in her maroon hat three pews ahead of us. She notices me too and waves. I wonder if I should start wearing a hat to mass after the wedding. I decide hats are for older ladies and that women of my generation are free to make more liberal fashion choices. We walk home.
Da spends the afternoon reading the Sunday Independent and my mother spends the day roasting a leg of lamb. On Monday my mother asks me if I’d like to crochet with her. I would rather not, but she says, how else am I going to learn how to clothe a baby? We start with a pattern for booties. I’m not very good and my mother has to rip out my stitching and start me over several times. On Tuesday, we go to town to pick up some groceries. We pass by Switzers and my heart aches.
“That’s not your life anymore,” my mother says when she catches my turned-down lip from the corner of her eye. “You’re about to become a doctor’s wife, Maura.”
On Wednesday she says there’s great drying out. We wash clothes, hang them on the line, wash, and repeat. Thursday, we return to town because we’ve run out of spuds for the dinner. She walks into town the long way around and I know her intention is to avoid passing by Switzers again. The large bag of potatoes is heavy and my arms hurt by the time we get home. That night, she comes into my room when I’ve gone to bed. She kisses my forehead the way she did when I was a little girl and she tells me that not all weeks of my new life will be as full of chores.
“But be assured, Maura, a woman’s work is never done. Men might think they rule this world. But behind every good man is a great woman.”
“Beside every man?” I question, assuming she misspoke.
“No,” she says firmly. “I mean behind. A good wife knows her worth. A man values a woman who runs a smart house, keeps a pretty face, and gives him children. Do your best and you will have the wonderful life you deserve. I’m so proud of you, my darling. So very proud.”
My eyes weigh shut with her words circling in my mind. I love my parents dearly and equally, but for the first time in my life I realize they are not equals under this roof. Under any roof. It saddens me.
Like most little girls, I started daydreaming about my wedding day from the moment I first knew what a wedding was. And like most little girls, I never offered consideration to the marriage that would inevitably follow. When I was five or six years old, one of the young women on our road got married. All the neighbors stepped onto the street to see her off with well wishes and a round of applause.
“Look at her, Maura,” my mother said, pointing at the bride’s long satin dress and the veil that ran from the tip of her head almost down to her toes. “That’ll be you someday, my love. A woman’s wedding day is the most wonderful day of her life.”
On the morning of the wedding, sun shines through my curtains, casting oddly shaped shadows on the floor. I get up, draw the drapes back, and take in the beautiful day waiting outside.
Christy chose our wedding date.
“June twenty-first is the longest day of the year and I want our wedding day to last as long as possible,” he said a few weeks back when we took a drive through the Dublin mountains in his brand-new Ford Capri.
It was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. I made him pull over so I could kiss him. I kissed him long and hard and he kissed me right back with an intensity that made my cheeks burn. As his hands reached for me and I could feel we were heading for more, I gently pulled away and placed his hands back on the steering wheel, breathing hard.
“Dammit, Maura.”
The blast of the horn as he brought a clenched fist down onto the steering wheel made me jump, and, instinctively, I pressed my back against the car door.
He turned toward me quickly and cupped my face in his trembling hands.
“I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry. Did I scare you?”
I nodded and struggled to catch my breath.
“You’re just so pretty. Too pretty. It’s hard to wait until our wedding night. But you’re right. Of course you’re right. We mustn’t rush. It will be all the sweeter for waiting.”
He leaned forward and kissed me once more. I relaxed at once and I was filled with a warm glow that lasted until we got home. I wonder if he knew it was just as difficult for me to wait until our wedding night. Maybe I’ll tell him sometime when we’re old and gray and he’ll know how much I wanted to lie in his arms from the moment we met.
Now, in my childhood bedroom, my mother helps me into my dress. It was my cousin’s. She got married last year and made it herself. It had to be altered for me, taken in and let down. It sits cinched at the waist, with a round neck, three-quarter-length sleeves, and an A-line skirt resting just below my knees.
Ma holds her face in her hands and cries when she tells me I’m the most beautiful bride she has ever seen. I wear a ring of white carnations in my hair and I slip my feet into stilettos with a heel as slender as a knitting needle. I have never felt more beautiful or more alive in my entire life.
The photographer is waiting when we arrive at Whitefriar Street Church in the center of the city. Passersby clap and cheer and wish me well. Da links his arm through mine and we stop in the door arch to have our photograph taken.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
My fingertips are tingling with nervous excitement as I curl my hand a little tighter around my bouquet. Certain and yet somehow still a little shaky, I take a deep breath and say, “I am.”
Christy’s younger sister, Agatha, is my bridesmaid—having no sisters of my own, I felt obliged to ask her. I don’t know her well and it’s all slightly awkward, but she smiles often and tells me we’ll be close friends. I like to think so too.
When the organ begins to play, Agatha leads us into the church. My breath catches as Da and I follow.
Inside, a small smattering of my family and friends sit on one side. A larger gathering of Christy’s family and friends sit on the other. Christy and his older brother, Declan, stand facing the altar. Declan is also a doctor, their mother, Grace, takes great pride in reminding me regularly. He married a nurse two years ago and Grace seems rather pleased about that. Today, Declan is Christy’s best man. They wear matching black suits and smart top hats. Christy stands a fraction taller and I can see the rise and fall of his shoulders with each deep breath. I’m comforted to think he’s as nervous as I am. Declan peeks over his shoulder, offers me a wide smile, and turns back to whisper something in his brother’s ear. Christy’s shoulders steady and so do my nerves. It’s a long, slow walk to the top of the church as the organ bellows. At the top, Christy finally turns, looks at me with wide, almost starstruck eyes, and shakes my father’s hand. And then Da hands me over.
The mass is long and my stomach is full of butterflies. I trip over my words as Christy and I say our vows and I hear Agatha stifle a giggle behind me. My hand shakes while I sign the register.
The priest stands behind us and places a hand on my shoulder and another on Christy’s and he says, “Congratulations, Dr. and Mrs. Christopher Davenport. Christy, you may kiss the bride.”
My face stings as the congregation applauds, but when Christy’s lips press against mine and I kiss my new husband every feeling except euphoria melts away. Ma was right , I think.
The photographer lines us up outside the church with military precision. He takes snap after snap. Christy and me. His parents with us. My parents with us. Everyone. He repeats his efforts on the steps of The Shelbourne when we arrive to enjoy our wedding breakfast.
“Just one more,” he says, as everyone is flagging.
The midday sun is blisteringly hot and Da is complaining about a hole in his stomach that needs filling.
“Last one, last one,” the photographer says, and then he lowers the camera to look directly into my eyes as he adds, “Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. You look like a young Doris Day.”
“Keep your eyes off my wife,” Christy says.
Everyone laughs. Even Da, who is as grumpy as a grizzly bear by now.
I laugh too until Christy’s hand tightens around my back and his fingers dig into my waist. I try to pull away, just a fraction, but he pulls me back. That’s when I realize what Ma meant. I belong to Christy now. A possession with a measured value. Like a pocket watch, or a pair of old gloves.