My friends, fiancé, and I headed down the street towards a local upscale restaurant and bar for a rare night out of the house. When our group became engaged in a conversation about the mechanics of home beer brewing, I lost interest and asked my friend, Mary, about her new baby daughter.
“Oh, it’s so great,” she said unconvincingly. Then, more truthfully, she admitted, “It’s really difficult though. I always heard about sleep deprivation but I never anticipated it would feel this horrible.”
“Yeah, that must be rough,” I said, hoping it was an appropriate response.
“It really is,” she said, “but I shouldn’t complain. Every mom goes through it.”
“I see,” I responded. An uncomfortable silence followed, and then she turned her attention to my upcoming wedding with my fiancé, Mike. “I bet you can’t wait,” she said. “I know the planning is exhausting, but once the actual day comes, you’ll be glad you invested so much time.”
I smiled at her politely. In truth, I wasn’t like most of my female friends. The idea of a wedding didn’t excite me. I loved my husband, but not in the same way my girlfriends professed to love theirs. I believed their version of love required a certain amount of self-delusion and wasn’t meant for lifelong commitments, as their eventual divorces ended up proving. I hoped that feeling a “grounded” love for one another would prevent my fiancé and me from separating in the future. We were only marrying to show others just how committed we were to each other, but for us, it was just another day.
Our group stopped at the street corner waiting for the walk sign to light up. As I was standing there, separated from the group’s conversation, I heard someone gasp. Thinking the person was gasping at something that might cause me harm, I looked up worriedly. It was only my mother. “Mom what are you doing here?” I began to say, but I soon realized the woman was not my mother at all. She only resembled my mother. The lady was standing next to me with a pained expression on her face as she stared across the street into a restaurant window. I followed her gaze, but only noticed a few restaurant patrons seated inside. At one table sat a middle-aged woman and a girl I assumed to be her daughter. At the other table sat an older man and a younger woman who looked like they were about to leave. It was not until the older man kissed the younger woman affectionately on the lips that I understood the gasp.
Again, I heard a sound from the woman beside me. She must have just discovered her husband cheating on her, I thought. I wanted to reach out to her and offer her comfort, but I didn’t feel it was my place to do so, so when the walk light came on I moved forward with my group. On the other side of the street near the restaurant, I watched the older man and his mistress come outside. The older man paused to kiss the woman again and it was when he did this that I noticed an uncanny resemblance between my fiancé and him. Even the way he leaned in for the kiss reminded me of Mike. The younger woman, on the other hand, reminded me of someone too, but I couldn’t place her until Mary turned to ask me if I was interested in seeing a recent photo of her baby girl. I looked across the street at myself twenty or thirty years in the future and then back at my future husband cheating on me with Mary’s grown daughter.
Realizing I had been deluded all along, I turned away from my group and walked towards the older version of me. I grabbed her hand, my pride, and guided her away from the restaurant. We walked hand in hand away from our men, deciding to take our vows with only one another.