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Organ music echoes through the church, its deep sound bouncing off the walls and pillars, refracting back down from the tall, arched ceiling. The music fills the space, loud enough for its tones to vibrate through rows of occupied church pews; for every guest to feel how it reverberates through their bones, their body, until they breathe in sync with the march’s notes.
It’s a wedding march, that music echoing through their bones. But by the time its notes have reached Sophia sitting in the front row, once they’ve passed through her bones (which have begun to feel as brittle as her heart these past few weeks) it feels like a funeral march instead.
Loud and solemn, announcing a private grief that has already corroded her heart.
The guests’ colorful attire only seems to mock the occasion. As if this dark day, the result of one catastrophically stupid mistake, is anything to celebrate.
Sophia had considered wearing black to make a statement, but she’d changed her mind at the last minute to spare Dorothy. Knowing it’d only serve to hurt her further; give her another injury to stack onto her pile of recent sorrows.
So she’d chosen gray instead. It seemed a fitting color, the middle ground between mourning blacks and wedding whites.
Though sitting here, in her half-mourning gray, Sophia almost wishes she’d worn black after all. She feels strangely exposed on this church pew, nurturing a broken heart without her mourning colors to hide behind.
This should’ve been one of the proudest, most joyful occasions of her life. Sure, she’d hoped for the day to come sometime, as every mother does: her pussycat getting married, having a baby, walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress.
Only she’d never dreamed of becoming a grandmother — or a mother-in-law — this young.
She’d never even thought Dorothy, out of the three of her kids, would be the one to give her a grandchild (or a son-in-law). Never mind her being the first. Actually, the only kid she'd ever really counted on for grandchildren was Gloria; Phil had always seemed like even more of a lost case than Dorothy.
But if it happened, it should’ve happened years from now. With a kind man who loved Dorothy rather than her convenience to him. With a man Dorothy loved in return, and wanted to marry, rather than being forced by their circumstances. The white dress she’d wear shouldn’t have felt like a lie, barely concealing the swell of her stomach. They should’ve had the time to sort it all out and make perfect arrangements for the wedding.
Privately, Sophia thinks at least half the guests here must be present just to gloat, or to be able to gossip about it with all of their miserable friends later.
But proper ways be damned, now her baby is getting married and becoming a mother, when she's still every bit a child herself. She’s been sharp and despondent for weeks when she should’ve been radiating with joy. Robotically going through the motions of life, studying for her final exams, making wedding arrangements, cutting into everyone who so much as mentioned it with a scorching look and an icy remark. Dorothy’s always had a quick wit, but she’d never used it to cut like this before.
Not until he waltzed into her life.
Walking down the aisle in that white lie of a dress, Dorothy clings to Sal’s arm like he’s her last way out of this mess.
And oh, how Sophia wishes she could march over to her pussycat now, grab her by the other arm, and pull her away from this short path to a miserable life. To hell with society! She’d raise that baby herself if she had to, if it meant seeing Dorothy happy again.
She doesn’t even try, though. It’d be of no use. She knows Dorothy wouldn’t even budge, if she did. She’d keep her steady, slow pace towards the altar, towards that yutz of a man and the life she’s not cut out to live. Because this is the only proper way to fix the problem.
It’s probably the only way Dorothy can see out of it that’s going to minimize the damage to her reputation — to the image she has of the girl she’s supposed to be — and Sophia hasn’t been given enough time to talk her out of it. To assure her she’d be fine, she’d still be loved, if she chose not to commit to her horrible mistake — that they’d find a way out of it together.
Sophia, for the first time in her life, is powerless to stop Dorothy from doing something catastrophically stupid. Because unlike her other children, Dorothy never has made a big mistake before.
Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to girls like Dorothy. The dutiful, responsible, hard-working kids. The child Sophia could put in charge of the whole household at the age of ten so she could run some errands, and trust everyone would still be safe and sound (and the house not in shambles) by the time she got back. Girls like Dorothy, who got straight A’s, wrote poetry, and played the accordion in the school band. Who didn’t so much as look at boys, ever, unless they looked at her first.
Dorothy probably thinks she’s making Sophia proud by owning up to the consequences of her temporary lapse of judgment. But all Sophia wishes is that she would’ve chosen, just this once, to stop trying to be such a good daughter all the time.
Doesn’t Dorothy know Sophia will love her, no matter what she does?
She wonders what she’s done wrong, for her daughter to feel she has to be this devoted to doing the right thing, even if it costs her everything. That she’d be willing to sacrifice her future, her dreams, her identity, for duty and propriety’s sake.
Walking down the aisle, Dorothy perfectly plays the part of a proud bride, with her head held high and her back straight as ever. But Sophia sees the clench of her jaw, and the way she seems to be looking everywhere but at the man (who’s still a boy, really) waiting for her at the altar.
This is the unhappiest she’s ever seen her pussycat. Sophia knows, because for the first time in her life, she can’t see into Dorothy’s heart when they lock eyes.
She’d looked so fragile, only hours ago, when Sophia had zipped up her wedding dress. She’d stood there, eyes desperately sad, but her mouth drawn into a determined line — with only the slight quiver of her bottom lip to betray just how hard she was trying to keep it all together.
She’d been shaking subtly, then. Looking so fragile Sophia thought one gust of wind could’ve swept her up and blown her away, a crumbling leaf off a dying tree.
Nothing remains of that fragile girl now, as she steps up to the altar and places her hands in his. The man Sophia will have to call her son, from this day on, when she can’t even bring herself to think his name.
She should’ve seen it coming, that sudden, hollow strength of Dorothy's. Until recently, Dorothy had never been able to hold it together in her mother’s arms. But when Sophia had pulled her down to embrace her one last time, after putting on that wedding dress — to ensure her it would all be alright, even if she didn’t believe it herself, because this was the very last thing she could do to help her pussycat — Dorothy’s breathing had remained steady, and her cheeks dry.
Sophia had felt her girl’s heart flutter inside her chest, though. Beating against her ribs like a little bird’s wings against the confines of its cage.
Sophia had never thought it possible for a human heart to break, but she could swear she felt it when she’d looked at Dorothy, and found nothing but a steady, detached resignation in her eyes. The past weeks’ barely veiled desperation was gone, leaving only the slightest remnants of a deep sadness behind her eyes.
Sophia had kept her own expression as reassuring as she could manage, even as she felt a tear open up somewhere deep inside her chest. The bars of her ribcage proved no protection against her daughter’s pain.
It wasn’t fair.
The world wasn’t fair. It never had been to Sophia, and she’d made her peace with that a long time ago. But she’d always been determined that it would be for her children, for her pussycat, hoping she’d suffered enough for the lot of them. Hoping that if the world would need another victim, it’d pick her, rather than one of her babies. And though she’d always been the first to admit their God is a cruel one, she’d never considered the extent of it. Not until today.
Watching Dorothy look at the wedding minister, her hands in her future husband’s palms, Sophia’s eyes finally blur with the tears her daughter refused to shed.
She rummages around in her purse for something to catch her tears with, when her fingertips find what she was looking for. She wraps her fingers around the handkerchief, rubbing her thumb against the soft fabric, suddenly afraid that bringing it out into the open would be like putting her grief on display for all to see.
But she’s alone with her grief, anyway, because all eyes are fixed on the seemingly happy couple at the altar. Even Sal doesn’t seem to see all the way to the miserable, wretched heart of it all.
She’ll have to get used to being alone from now on, because her pussycat — her eldest daughter, the child she’s always been able to count on, the girl who’s been her shoulder to lean on more than she'd like to admit — is nowhere to be found.
In her place stands a young bride, tall and statuesque. With a feigned pride in her stance to distract from the detached resignation in her eyes.
Her Dorothy left the room hours ago, Sophia’s sure she was there when it happened. And she left a shell of a bride — of the girl she must think she has to be — in her place.
Sophia’s grip tightens on her handkerchief before she takes it out of her purse, and dabs at her eyes with the black cloth.
She doesn’t cry at weddings, but this doesn’t feel like one. She’s here to watch her Dorothy bury the girl she used to be, and all Sophia can do is pray — to beg this cruel god of theirs — that she’ll turn out alright in the end.