Feel No Rain

The dress was a perfect fit, but the shoes were two sizes too small. I went barefoot. Jonah wore a suit he already owned with a new shirt and new tie. We looked like we were on our way to Easter dinner.

“Oh shit.” Jonah sputtered as we ran out to the car to make the service.

“What?”

“I forgot the flowers.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need flowers.”

“Yes, you do.”

I glanced around the yard and spied the flowers growing wild next to the barn. I ran inside, grabbed a knife, and cut several stems of the delicate purple buds, wrapped them with the ribbon from my hair, and tied on my favorite rosary.

We were late. Jonah drove fast as he coached me on my vows.

“What about November?” I asked. We planned to have a large Catholic wedding on my eighteenth birthday the following November.

“We’re still getting married at Sacred Heart, but, I can’t wait that long for you to be my wife.”

“But, we don’t have a marriage license.”

“Who needs it? I just need to hear the words.”

We pulled up in front of a small Christian church and ran inside. The minister waited for us just inside the door. Jonah’s mother, Maureen, sat in the front pew, Kleenex in hand.

“Who’ll give you away?” the minister asked me.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll walk together,” Jonah said.

Jonah and I walked down the aisle arm in arm, witnessed only by Maureen, the minister, and God.

“I take you, Jonah, in all the ways life may find us, tending you in sickness and rejoicing with you in health, as long as we both shall live to love-” The word live caught in my throat, drawing on deep wells of tears.

The minister spoke about the symbolism of the ring, but I missed most of it.

“Wear this ring, Brigid, as a symbol of love, peace and of all that is unending.” Jonah slid the ring onto my finger. It was the same one he’d given me in March.

I panicked, realizing I didn’t have a ring to give him. “Jonah, I have no ring-“

“Wait!” Maureen jumped up, dropping several tissues onto the floor. She ran to us and took off her necklace bearing Jonah’s dad’s wedding ring. David’s hands had grown too plump for the small gold band. She handed me the ring. Jonah reached out, hugged his mother, whispered he loved her, and turned back to his wife.

“Wear this ring, Jonah, as a symbol of love, peace and of all that is unending.” I slid David’s ring onto his finger. The ring was a size too big for Jonah, as he’d lost weight to the virus, so he held the ring on with his thumb. Tears slowly slid.

“Jonah and Alexandra have declared their love and devotion to each other before family and friends, I now greet them with you as husband and wife.

“Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be sanctuary to the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there is no isolation for you. Now there is no more loneliness. Now you are two, but there is only one life in front of you. Go now and enter the days of your togetherness.”

We left the church, hand in hand, husband and wife. No one threw rice. No carriage or limo waited to whisk us to tropical destinations. There was only us and that was perfect.

We drove home in silence. All I could think about was how marriage was a lifetime commitment and I didn’t know how long our lifetime would be.

I bounded out of the car and up the steps, my stomach flipping with anxiety and adrenalin.

“Stop right there!” Jonah yelled. I stopped on the porch and waited. He slammed the car door and dashed up to me. He picked me up, carried his wife across the threshold, and into the bedroom. He placed me on the bed and undressed us both. We did not consummate the marriage. He refused to share with me the one thing that was killing him.

We laid together, naked, bodies entangled, until he drifted to sleep. I stayed in his arms for the rest of the night listening to him breathe. His ragged expirations sounded like a popcorn popper. His chest rattled and vibrated next to my bare breasts. I knew it was pneumonia.

Photo: FaeAnachronism