Do you take this man?

She looked beautiful, and I think we both knew it was exactly how she wanted to look today.  I looked exactly how she wanted me to look today in a grey suit and leather bound watch.  My beard was trimmed to the length that her mother expressed she liked to see.  Her makeup was subtle, but with perfect red lips.

Red lips that were not moving right now, as we both listened to the minister at the church go over the end of her vows back to me.  I have already said I would, and I do, for now until the end of my life.  During the best moments we celebrate, during the pain that we will endure together.  When she is ill, I will be there to help her in all the ways I can which would include spoon feeding her tomato soup no matter how badly I’m bothered by the smell. I would carry her financially if she ever lost her dream job.  I’ll clean the house when she’s just too tired emotionally to deal with these things.

Her eyes flickered back and forth from mine to the eyes of our pastor and she listened to the words he said.  While we both knew her eyes to be brown, I knew they were more than just brown and as they moved in the candlelit church I could see every color in them.  The honey brown centers that spiked and jumped to tones of amber.  They sat in a thin ring of coffee that made the brighter tones in her eyes pop against the bright white they floated in.

The room became quiet as the pastor stopped reciting the vows that were written down in his book.  Her eyes were still focused on him at that moment and I could hear each noise the room made.  Aunt Myrtle coughed from the back of the room, her COPD getting the better of her with all the candles lit in here.  Someone was looking through their purse, probably for a cell phone no doubt.  I’d like to believe it was to take a picture, but I’m sure it was to check the message that caused her bag to vibrate.

My eyes looked directly behind my future wife at her made of honor, who was wiggling her fingers just enough to cause her bridal bouquet of flowers to shake and rattle silently though the church.  The way the leaves hit and tapped on each other playfully was causing the rose pollen to fall and hit the floor like matte yellow glitter.  I’m sure if I had focused I could hear it hit the aged red carpet.

But I wasn’t focused on trying to hear pollen hit the floor, because I was desperately waiting to hear my future wife speak.  Instead I heard the rustle of stiff suit fabric as someone behind me adjusted their stance.  I heard tulle brush against someone nylons in front of my in the bridle party.  I heard the labored breathing of my future mother in law as she held back tears.  

I did not hear my beloved speak.

I watched as the candles playfully danced against the stained glass walls and thought about how much she wanted to be married in the evening, even though everyone else suggested against it.  She wanted to be married in the dark, in the night, with nothing but the soft glow of fire lighting the room.  She had said to me once it would feel like our love and passion blooming on the candle.  I love the poetry she created in her brain.

There was a desperate part of me in this moment that wished we had followed our initial thoughts and had a wedding ceremony starting at 8pm.  We would be here late at night when the buses stop running and it’s harder to hail a taxi in this part of town. 

 Instead I know that the silence I am heard in this room could be followed by the sound of running heels through the chapel. She could head out the door and to a bus stop less than a block away where she might be picked up and driven to the other side of town on the 4:20 stop.  Her cousin in the third row could be rustling through her purse to text and uber drive to show up and take her away. 

My love, my one and only, slowly turned her head back to me.  The pearls in her necklace adjusted as she led with her bright red lips.  Her dark hard was pulled up high on the crown of her head, stiff with hairspray, and the few carefully chosen curls that rested playfully on her face bounced in slow motion as her head came back in my direction. I could smell the perfume she was wearing as the muscles in her neck activated and created the heat that I so crave.  It smelled different and I knew it wasn’t what she normally wore, but I couldn’t tell you what this was.

She still did not speak.

We held our gaze for what felt like an eternity.  Had this been any other moment, I would have stayed here in the moment for the rest of my life.  I would have looked into her eyes, smelled her perfume, touched her lace gloved hands, and never found the moment where I died and went to heaven.

But this was not the moment I wanted to stay in because of the silence.  Because I couldn’t hear the words I was growing desperate to hear.  I could ever everything else in the room, but I couldn’t hear two small words that would have turned me from sweating and scared, to elated.  

Her lips quivered and changed, going from a relaxed smile to something more serious.  Her nose twitched as she took a long and deep breath in.  I am not sure if my hands squeezed hers or if she was squeezing mine, but together the tension in our fingers tightened.  The small subtle movements in her mouth left it hard for lip readers to know what was said, but I heard the word more clearly than any other noise in the room.

“I do”

And I felt the air in my chest release.