Show and tell

December 19, 2020

The lid is loud as it slams the box shut, taunting my indecision to open it. I try again, this time pushing it back all the way, my arthritic joints squeaking in protest. The stubborn hinges relent, revealing the meagre contents of the chest--a wispy veil of mist and magic. I lift it out of its blue velvet cage and almost hear a rustle of complaining. It's been a while. It glows in the dimly-lit room as I hold it close to my face, drinking in the intoxicating fragrance that's a delicious cross between irises and eternity, with fading notes of the roses from my wedding bouquet. A wedding that I had run away from.

February 4, 1996

The hairstylist places it on my head, weighing it down with a diamond tiara that is far too flashy for my taste. But no one notices it, or my dress, or me. The veil is taking centre stage today. It should. It's my something borrowed.

Flash, flash, click

I'm told to cover my face only when I lock elbows with my father. "Far too many brides have been taken down by the veil," the makeup girl cautions. Not me. Not today. 

Flash, click

The pianist keys my cue, the cover comes down. Hell breaks loose.

Click, click, click

I keep playing the moment over and over as I wail by the lake, the ivory of my dress now muddied brown, my golden hair a tangled mess and the veil a cloud of white on my head. You should have been here like I was at your wedding. Aren't Maids of Honour supposed to be prepared for every emergency--broken buttons, last-minute swigs, and fiancés who kiss bride's mothers? But you left me with your veil instead. A veil, that you said, would help me see. If I try hard enough, I remember the words that played on your dying lips. Now I hum the tune too.

"If I could leave anything behind, may it be...

the ability to gift an ability to see,

beyond the shine and beauty and mystery...

into pools of the soul that will set you free"

No one knows what happened that day. Why did I run away from my wedding or why did I return, bruised and soiled yet smiling through my mascara-caked face. But you do, my best friend. You showed me. Luring me to the edge of the lake to wash my tear-streaked face, you consorted with the breeze to sweep the veil back in place. In the water, I watched as you held me close and kissed me sweet. 

I was lucky enough to find you, my soulmate, when I was four. You must have known it back then too, smiling at me from across the playground. You were always the oddball, weren't you? Teaching me to climb up the slide and swing in loops. Dyeing my hair purple and defending it as the perfect shade to my livid mother. Telling me it was alright to cancel our European trip, a childhood dream, to join med school, even though you had to backpack all alone. Assuring me you'd be there for me despite cancer eating away at your lungs. "Do you trust me," you'd ask and I'd nod my agreement.

The kiss is the veil's trickery, I now see. A veiled message for souls that belong to each other. Another one of your spells. An old game of show and tell. A secret code that is now mine to keep.

This time when I walk down the aisle, your gift assures me that there's nothing wrong in marrying my mother's soulmate, because I have mine in you, and my father has his in my sister's son. Romance, the veil whispers to me, isn't just physical. Souls, it tells me, are beyond human relations. Soulmates, it reveals, need to move on too, to help other soulmates find their way home.

"Do you trust me?" the veil asks now. I only grin as I answer, "I do".

Say cheese, click, click, wrap

November 8, 1997

My loving husband can never understand why I keep the veil perched on the dressing table mirror, fussing over it religiously even as the rest of the house gathers dust. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he's jealous of it. But you can't stuff your soulmates away, can you? Besides, I need to keep you handy, for how else would I tell you how happy I'm to see him help my mother rediscover her love for cooking and how grateful I feel that he has given her the confidence to open a restaurant, her lifelong dream. How else would you help me decide between the blue or pink dress? How else would you meet my daughter?

December 6, 1997

She's here but you're not. Today when I wear the veil, I see my daughter's puckered pink lips meet mine. I'm not sad. I know it's time. You've tagged another soul to help mine.

And so I wrap up the veil in the fabric of the fairies and place it in our special box, besides childhood trinkets, movie ticket stubs and broken jewellery. It has shown me all I need to know, for now.

December 20, 2020

My daughter is a vision in white as I place the gauzy fabric on her carefully coiffed hair and take a step back to drink her in. The veil is just as radiant today as it was on the rainy morning of my wedding. Her something old is timeless, after all. 

The snow outside sparkles as it catches the sun and flecks of it reflect in her molten copper eyes. Eyes that brim with hope and possibility and a million dreams. Oh, she's beautiful! Almost immediately I don't want to give her the veil. What if she's not ready for the lesson yet? What if she breaks down just like I had all those years ago? What if she thinks of the gift as a curse? 

Just then a draft of cold air prickles the back of my neck. And you tell me, she'll know. 

So, I hum the tune I'll never forget and sing the words that will lead me home into the ears of my soulmate and hope she remembers.