She is stunning, as she always is, but I have a unique reaction to her beauty as she is swathed in white, stepping toward me to become my wife. I cannot help but stand taller, stretch my chest wider, lift my chin, flex my hands at my side.
As she approaches, my mind settles on one truth: Marianna Morelli is not a woman, she is a cataclysm. A natural disaster bound straight for me, and I will be as powerless to stop what she stirs up as someone in the path of a hurricane.
Her face is serious, as it so often is, but her eyes contain a multitude of intrigue that I can’t tear myself away from. Her mother hugs Marianna first, and then offers me a hug as well, which I accept, kissing the matriarch softly on her cheek and trying to imbue as much sincerity as I can in my expression. I try to assure her that, if her youngest daughter cannot be with someone she loves, she will at least be safe. She will be cared for and cherished, protected and enabled, and our children willbe adored and given what they need to thrive in a world that is punishing and cruel.
I try to tell her, with only my eyes, that Marianna is secure with me. I don’t know that she gets all that, but she does nod, and squeezes my forearm before ushering me to look at her youngest daughter who stands across from me now, a bouquet overflowing with fresh flowers and eucalyptus clutched in her hands.
Her niece holds out a hand for the flowers, and Marianna startles, realizing she’d forgotten the step and hands them to her.
Now, with both of our hands empty, she meets my eyes once again. After a quiet moment, one side of her mouth lifts into a slight smile.
I offer her one of my hands and she takes it, then the other, and her fingers are cold and mine are too warm and we’re holding onto each other before a city of mobsters.
The priest begins his speech, and I barely hear him. Marianna looks at the priest while he speaks, and it gives me the opportunity to study the slant of her nose, slightly crooked like it’s been broken once before. She has freckles on her cheeks, ones you’d have to be very close to see, and I want to count them. The dress’s straps slightly cover the scar on her shoulder, but not entirely.
“Maxim?” The priest says, repeating himself.
I clear my throat. “Hm?”
“I know she’s stunning, but now you have to say your vows,” he says with a smile, and a chuckle sounds from the audience.
Even if I wanted to, there would be no going back after this.
I tune into the words the priest has me repeat and, in front of every person in my world and hers, I vow to be faithful and honor her. She does the same, her voice steady and determined.
And then her nephew is at our side, rings in hand, and before I know it, I’m slipping a thin gold band on her finger and reminding myself to breathe when she puts a ring on mine.
“You may now kiss,” the priest says with a grin.
Marianna looks up at me from beneath her lashes and tilts her jaw up as I lean down to meet her mouth.
The church feels heavy with silence. Her eyes close as my lips press against hers and I know in this instant I will not be the same again.
I attempt to move away before I fall too deep into the madness that is kissing her after imagining it for so long, but one of her hands comes up to grip my lapel and tugs me back to her, closer this time, and deepening the kiss as the church erupts into loud cheers and applause.
My hands slip around her waist and pull her up to me. We didn’t talk about kissing, nor intimacy, only about the necessity of making a child. I don’t know if she’ll kiss me again for the rest of our lives, but if this is the last she ever offers me, at least it isthis one.
Immediately followingthe ceremony came the pictures, then the food, the line of guests to congratulate us, the cake cutting, more pictures, before, finally, it’s time for our first dance as husband and wife.
The DJ announces that it’s time for the bride and groom to make their way to the dance floor, dimming the lights as we approach, and Marianna grabs my forearm and pulls so that she can reach my ear.
“Pretend you love me,” she whispers. Her eyes are on the table where her family and my sisters sit. “Please. Make it looklike you actually love me. I don’t want my Goddaughter forever disillusioned by the institution of marriage.”
“Yes, wife.”
She smirks at my response, and doesn’t stiffen when I pull her close to me, one hand on her back and the other holding up her hand. We are still, everyone quiet like a held breath, and then the music begins and I lead her in a dance.
She’s in shorter heels than usual, putting the top of her head in line with my chin. Tiny pearl pins are arranged in her curly hair without order, reminding me of the freckles on her chest. I was engaged once, a separate time from my nonexistent engagement to Vanessa, and my ex fiancée was tall, almost six feet. I alwaysbelievedI wanted a tall woman. I had many beliefs about my type; what they should look like, be like, act like.
Marianna fits not a single one of them.
She is brash and violent, a storm of a woman in a very compact form. Her hands are calloused, knuckles scarred, and her arms and shoulders have muscle definition in spades. She seldom smiles, and laughs less.
And yet.
“You’re good at this,” she says.
“Dancing?”
