Vows Broken at the Altar

Vows Broken at the Altar 

I hoped for my girlhood to die quickly, yet standing here I knew a stubborn portion of it remained. More than the fat that still crested my cheek, was the girlish hope for romance. I had lived most of my life weary of men, keeping them at a safe distance. At 18, I vows never to let a man have control over me, but here I was standing in front of one wearing a white dress. 

When Nonna was alive, she would tell me about her great love story with Nonno. I remember how she would look at the bay window, her head pressed against the glass, eyes focused somewhere beyond the horizon. Nonno went to her father and did not leave until he permitted him to marry his daughter. She described the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his voice in a way that made him seem mystical. He was the hero who carried her bridal style away from poverty and into a grand life in America. 

Janie and I would sit with our legs crossed at her feet and listen to it with wide eyes. Janie, my big sister, was particularly enamored with the tale. She would make me dress up in Nonno’s old ties and reenact the scene as described. Mamma never talked about our father, nor did she talk about Nonno. This meant that Nonna’s stories were all we knew of men. Looking back, I wished Janie had paid less attention to those stories and more to Mamma. I was the only one who noticed how she would shift into a trance-like silence whenever we brought up Nonno or our father. 

Janie looked to be saved from our little life, which led her to Adam. I liked Adam, at least how much I saw of him. He was charming and intelligent. He would complement my paintings whenever he caught a glimpse. I didn’t understand why Mamma was so against him back then. Perhaps, if she only told us to watch out for such charm. If she warned us that an outpouring of love in the first month could turn sour quickly, Janie would still be here. I did not know Adam was violent until it was too late. Not until the authorities found Janie beaten and breathless on the floor of her living room. 

My mother did not cry when she heard the news. She nodded, content somehow. I did not understand it, how could she not be heartbroken? Without Janie, I was nothing. 

“You are heartless!” I screamed at her that night before rushing to my bedroom. It was the room Janie and I shared before she moved in with Adam. I cried in loud gasping sobs, clutching tightly to the sheets on the side where Janie used to lay. Mamma did not console me. Months passed and we cohabitated without so much as a word. I busied myself working the front desk at a Veterinary office during the day and on my paintings at night.

I sold few paintings. My style was dark, inspired by the haunting images of Janie’s death. Of the pain, I imagined she endured the months before. If Mamma did see the paintings, she said nothing of them. Not until, I tried to paint Nonna’s love story, thinking it would be more likely to sell. 

I returned from work one day to find the painting half torn in the living room. I did not clock my mother kneeling next to it until seconds later. 

“What happened?” I yelled.

“Why are you doing this?” Mamma cried, gesturing to the painting. I stepped backward; I had not known my mother’s voice to be anything but cool and unbothered. In the entirety of my childhood, I had never once seen her cry.

“It's Nonna and Nonno; I thought it would sell better,” I said calmly.

“Do you know what your grandfather was like?” Mamma asked.

“Only what Nonna told us.”

“Nonna told you stories so she could rewrite her past and pretend it never happened.”

“What happened?”

“Your Nonno went and threatened harm to my grandparents if they did not give him their daughter. My mother was only 14 when it happened. Your Nonno was 28; he knew she was a child. She had me two years into their marriage, after two miscarriages. I wonder how much of that was due to stress. When I was six, he brought us here, and though he was never kind, as the finances worsened, he became more brutal. His wrath was always at the forefront of our minds. I would go to school wearing sweaters in August so that I would not be called away. Mamma had it worse until she had enough.” She paused. I allowed us to sit in silence for a moment, shifting my eyes away from her and to the painting. Nonno was still an outline, but Nonna’s base layer had been painted. I painted them dancing, as I had always imagined them—their right hands clasped together at their side as Nonno held onto Nonna’s hip.

“How did he die?” I looked up at Mamma, her face returned to her usual neutral expression.

“Your Nonna knew what she needed to do, as did I when your father turned out to be the same monster as mine.”

“And Janie?”

“She was too naive. I warned her, but she didn’t listen. She never listened to me. But you, Iris, you need to listen. Do not ever fall for a man’s charm.”

“You mean—you...” I walked backward from her, fiddling with the doorknob.

“We do what we need to survive.”

“No, I will survive on my own. I vow I won’t let it get to that.”

“I hope so, for your sake,” Mamma whispered.

I swore that I would never be answerable to a man, but as I have mentioned, such dreams die. I never did fall in love the way Janie did—quickly and without walls. Never shut myself off like Mamma. Never deluded myself like Nonna. Here I stood across from my future husband, both optimistic and prepared. Only time would tell if I would share in our family’s history.

“Do you, Iris Ricci, take Dylan Lechner to be your lawfully wedded husband?” our Pastor said.

I took a deep breath and cautiously said the two words that might serve as my own damnation: “I do.”