The Other Dan

Sharon was set to marry on December 21st.

It was a winter wedding — a bleak prospect she had fought against with all the womanly might bestowed upon her by nature. But her fiancé, Dan, was mightier still.

When Sharon summoned all her courage and tearfully voiced her wish, Dan calmly brushed it aside. If they were to marry, he told her, they should do so promptly. When she fussed and raged at him for being so inconsiderate and heartless, he threatened to cancel the wedding entirely. Sharon tried to take some comfort in Dan's impatience. After all, like he said, why should they wait so long for the summer? Besides, Dan had heard from a friend that winter weddings were cheaper.

Thus arrived the day of their cheap winter wedding.

As often happens on highly anticipated, stressful days, Sharon's eyes popped open several minutes before her alarm clock. She jumped out of bed in a flash. She knew daylight would be scarce, so they would have to strictly adhere to the rigorous schedule if they wanted to do the photoshoot outside.

Five hours later, the bridal party was in cacophonous turmoil. Throughout the day, each one of her friends had suffered some form of breakdown while preparing for the wedding. Dan and his friends showed up an hour late in a creamy white limousine, reeking of arak. They wore matching black suits. The uniform dress, combined with the way they walked and interacted, lent them a militaristic air. When the exhausted chauffeur of their spontaneously rented limo said that his lease had expired, Dan and his friends began shouting drunkenly at him. Eventually, the chauffeur simply shook his head and drove off.

Sharon had waited her entire life to see her husband on their wedding day, and in the midst of the chaos, Dan barely nodded at her. Unnoticed tears leaked freely between her thick eyelashes, spreading black mascara all over her cheeks. Immediately, everyone engulfed her with heated encouragements and commiserations. Sharon sobbed even harder. Once she settled down, the fretting makeup artist had to devote an additional fifteen agonizing minutes to fix her face.

They arrived at the venue. It was already pitch dark outside, so they were forced to do the photoshoot inside the enormous wedding hall. Sharon reconciled herself to the thought that what fleeting sunlight they might have caught had been masked by storm clouds anyway.

After a while, the guests began to arrive. Instead of greeting them, they waited in the groom and bride's private room for the wedding ceremony to begin. Sharon restlessly paced the small room, her puffy dress swishing around her. She felt like a lumpy blanket stuffed in a trash bag.

Dan had downed three shots since they met, and was only now finally paying her attention.

Too much attention.

Sharon told him she did not want to ruin her wedding dress. This excited Dan even further, and he gruffed out what could be generously described as words of profound affection — relative, of course, to his limited capacity for emotional expression. Eventually, she yielded by performing the mandatory minimum, vigilantly careful not to make a mess of her dress.

After it was over, Dan kissed her. The bristles around his mouth scratched at her face. His breath was sharply laced with arak. Then, nonchalantly — as if it had been agreed upon in advance rather than argued over countless times — he suggested they go outside to greet the guests.

Sharon was swarmed by family and friends gushing over her in a dizzying flurry. Her parents shouted with joy upon seeing their daughter, various plump aunts loftily kissed the air by her cheeks, and friends squealed and threw their arms around her. At some point, Sharon became aware that they were once again falling behind schedule. They had planned to remain in the private room, and now everyone wanted to meet her. She looked around for the producer.

This was the moment she saw Dan. But not her Dan. No, not at all.

Unlike most other male guests, he wore a suit. It shone a dark, brilliant green and was precisely tailored to his figure. His hair and beard were impeccably groomed. Every time he stood still, he looked like the front page of a fashion magazine.

Time itself slowed as this man — this alien, familiar Dan — strode toward her with calm purpose. Her tumultuous surroundings were reduced to a hush. All was perfectly quiet and still as he embraced her. Leaning back, he held her arms firmly in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes.

"You look wonderful," said Dan.

Before the bride could respond, someone jerked her shoulder from behind, physically wrenching her away from the moment. The magic lifted. It was the frantic producer, stuttering an apology and dragging Sharon off to start the ceremony.

Sharon walked down the aisle in a daze. The passing faces beaming at her from the crowd were as remote as the scenery beyond the window of a train. Dan was watching her from under the chuppah. She stopped.

The music soared and the crowd cheered as the groom approached his bride. Dan was extremely excited and nervous; the smile plastered on his face was betrayed by the hideous look of shock in his eyes. It was the first time all day Sharon felt some form of affection toward him, albeit a pitying one.

They performed the rehearsed ritual with the mechanical precision of automatons. First, they embraced. Then, they walked together down the aisle. Stopping before the chuppah, they faced each other. With atypical gentleness, Dan raised the veil from behind her head and covered her. As the grainy fabric touched her face she was suddenly alone, safely concealed in a shelter that obscured her face from all the prying eyes. She took a deep breath. Perhaps everything would turn out all right.

The rabbi was droning through their wedding ceremony. It was quite easy to tune him out. Sharon watched Dan. He seemed utterly focused on every word the rabbi was saying. Most of the crowd was decidedly not. She saw her mother and father. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Her grandfather in a wheelchair. Friends and acquaintances. Heaps more she did not recognize.

And in that sea of faces, there he was.

Incredibly, their eyes met. The intensity of his gaze surpassed the great distance between them, piercing sharply through her veil. The rabbi was chanting something or another as the Other Dan tilted his head, almost imperceptibly, in a defiant, questioning gesture. The motion sent Sharon tumbling into the recesses of her mind.

So many years had passed since she had known him. His mere presence rekindled ancient feelings and sensations. She had missed him terribly after they were separated, and could only resolve her longing by banishing him from her mind, permitting no remnants save barren scars that refused to heal. One pays a heavy price for utilizing such psychological techniques. Sharon was waking from a long, nightmarish slumber of numbing despair, and in the harsh clarity of her renewed lucidity the sunless abyss of her life was terrifying.

How odd is marriage! Two lumps of flesh, bones, and fluids vowing to cherish one another as long as they aimlessly roam the earth. She laughed at the mental image of two pinkish masses of skin with spotting, thin hairs perched side by side on a bench in the park. The rabbi paused in his speech to smile knowingly at the giggling, hysterical bride, his eyes dry with haughty calmness.

Sharon pondered the arbitrariness of her decision. Why not choose another balding lump? Perhaps, were she marrying someone she loved and respected, she would not care so much about such meaningless choices like the wedding venue, the photoshoot, and her dress. Only now, under the chuppah, did Sharon truly admit to herself an utter lack of love and respect for Dan. Her knees trembled, but she had no one to lean on. She steadied herself.

Sharon had been drawn to Dan. When they met, she was attracted to his strength and military manner. Later on she tolerated faults that bordered on abuse, taking comfort in his wealthy parents (despite the inexplicable frugality of their son). Nowadays she was accustomed to their bland love. Had all these been her choices? She felt as if she had spent her life drifting passively at sea, tossed about by the currents. Even her separation from the other Dan had not been her decision.

In the backdrop of life grows a winding tree of possibilities. Every choice sprouts a fresh cluster of countless, sprawling branches. For years, Sharon had ignored her tree, letting chance and circumstance dictate its expansion.

Nothing is particularly special about a wedding ceremony. There are infinite opportunities to say 'yes' or 'no' before it. The past, present, and future are shaped solely by decisions made in specific moments. A ceremony merely represents a promise.

Yet, it was in this moment that Sharon's tree was growing. Its branches of fate beckoned her to choose. Her Dan stood nervously before her. The other Dan was out there in the crowd, waiting.

"Can I?" Sharon gestured to the microphone. The rabbi stopped talking, and the entire audience turned to look at them.

Moving the microphone away from his bearded lips, the rabbi muttered, "Sharon, what is happening? I'm in the middle..."

"Give it to me," Sharon commanded. The rabbi was a large, fat man, and Sharon was like a tiny doll beside him, but when she reached for the microphone he immediately handed it to her. He was defenseless against the unspoken threat of her touch.

Sharon turned away from Dan and the rabbi and faced her crowd. She lifted the veil from her head with trembling fingers.

"I want to say sorry," said Sharon. "But more importantly, I must be honest. I must be real. So while I *am* sorry and ashamed about what I feel, I must state it." She looked back at Dan. "I do not love you."

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

"I know where we are standing," said Sharon. "This was the last chance to do this. But I think the feeling is likely mutual. You do not care for me as a husband should. I deserve more, and so do you. We will not marry today — or in the future," she added.

Their close relatives standing around the chuppah were in shock. Her parents were white-faced. Her grandfather's mouth hung wide open, his jaw dangling uselessly. A hyperventilating aunt was on the verge of fainting, and multiple people were trying to calm her.

Almost everyone was visibly shaken, except for one elderly woman. Dan's mother, Ilana, smiled at Sharon as she lifted a sloshing glass of bloodred wine in a triumphant salute.

The rabbi said something and tried to reach for the microphone.

"No!" Sharon shouted, her voice screeching horribly from the speakers. People covered their ears. "Sorry. I'm not done.

"I want to address all the young women in the crowd. Look at me. If I were to marry now, it would be worse than ignoring my feelings. It would be living a lie. So this is my advice: never settle. Demand a partner, not a competitor. Do not allow them to push you into being *just* a mother. You deserve a career if you want one. We, women, deserve romantic gestures, like… breakfast in bed, instead of watching boring soccer games. Find someone who admires you, spoils you, and respects you. Your partner should only expect of you what you would expect of yourself. And if you dream of a summer wedding, then know that you deserve one!"

Sharon's friends cheered. Some women from Dan's family cheered too (he had no female friends, but they probably also would have joined the chorus). Many people had transitioned from shock to bemusement.

Ilana, her almost-mother-in-law, was late in realizing the humiliation Sharon had caused her son. Now, pointy eyebrows jumping uncontrollably all over her forehead, Ilana tried to reach Sharon and confront her, but could not pass the insurmountable mass of people who surrounded the would-be bride. Blasting past those who were trying to pacify her, she grabbed her numb son and husband and marched them out of the wedding hall.

In stark contrast to the haziness she had felt throughout the day, Sharon now experienced the present with piercing clarity. She was alive — more alive than she had felt in ages. She apologized repeatedly to her guests in a light, airy way, as if she had merely spilled some wine in the ceremony instead of dumping the groom on his wedding night. She was surrounded by friends and family, most of them women. She was enjoying herself for the first time all day.

Where was he? Sharon was certain Dan would find her. That certainty remained strong as her friends called the bus driver. They were renting a villa and wanted to celebrate her revived bachelorhood. While they waited for the bus, Sharon scanned the guests who were leaving, searching for that dark green suit. She could not find him.

Then it was time for her to board. She looked around one last time. All the guests had left. Dan was not there.

Several hours later, Sharon was lying alone in one of the beds in the villa. It had been a great night, but now her heart was filled with sadness. It seemed she was destined never to find love. She wanted to sleep, but she knew that even in her dreams it would elude her. She closed her eyes. The tree was growing faster than ever, its branches thrashing behind her eyelids.

Shortly thereafter, she awoke to the thunderous chanting of an enormous crowd.

"Mekudeshet, mekudeshet, mekudeshet!"