Chapter Text
It was Agatha’s wedding day, and her hair was too tight. She’d been thinking about this day for quite some time, even before he had placed the ring, which later had to be resized, on her finger. And yet, her hair was too tight. She instinctively raised her hand to the top of her head, feeling the hardened locks full of hair spray and gel. She began to reach toward the bun at the back of her head, only to have her hand swatted away by her mother.
“None of that, Agatha,” Evanora Harkness scolded, scowl plastered on her face as always. “I’ve already sent the hairdressers home, and you wouldn’t want to ruin their work.”
Agatha sighed, consigned to her fate of too-tight hair and a dress that felt unflattering at best. Her mother had done all of the work for her wedding, including deciding on the dress and hairstyle. At first, it had felt nice. Agatha had been able to focus on simply being engaged, showing off her ring finger to anyone who would indulge her. She’d never thought of herself as that person. She was never like the girls who had been married the day after high school graduation and were already on their third child. But when she’d put the ring on, it was like something settled in her gut, something that had always felt off. For the first time, she felt that she was doing what was right in everyone else’s eyes. The thought comforted her. Some days though, she ventured that perhaps she was more excited about the ring itself than the marriage. It did, in all fairness, look quite good on her hand.
Ralph had been Agatha’s college sweetheart. He was good to her—too good, if she were honest with herself. They hadn’t stayed together after college, Agatha cutting Ralph loose much to Evanora’s dismay. He’d been heartbroken and she’d felt terrible, but she hadn’t wanted to string him along. Not when she wasn’t sure she would ever feel as strongly for him as he did for her. But then Ralph had shown up to one of mother’s “Agatha, I’m going to set you up with a good, respectable man” dinners, and she saw no good reason to turn him away. After slightly more than a year of sweet coffee dates and walks on the beach, he’d gotten down on one knee and, quite similarly, she hadn’t seen any reason to say “no.”
Though having her mother plan the wedding was helpful at first, it quickly turned into a battle in Agatha’s mind. It seemed as though her mother was treating her as a beloved but easily forgotten doll. She was playing dress-up with her, forcefully fitting Agatha into clothes and hairstyles that felt unnatural and confining. Every time Evanora spoke with Agatha about details of the wedding, Agatha had bitten her tongue. She’d wanted to be the perfect daughter her mother had raised her to be, but she saw a stranger in the mirror the first time she tried on the wedding dress. Nonetheless, Agatha relented. Some battles simply were not worth fighting her mother over. She rarely won those fights anyways. Throughout the planning stages, Agatha was simply floating along. She went where people told her to go, tried the cake they laid out in front of her, and kept quiet through it all. She’d practically lost the last year of her life to the wedding planning, and she was excited to finally tie the knot so that it could all be over. A piece of her, a small piece that she shoved to the back of her mind, had begun to wish she had pushed her mother a little more on the hair situation. Maybe then she wouldn’t have the urge to pull at her hair until it lifted entirely off of her scalp.
“No mother, of course not,” Agatha replied, dropping her hand gently back to her side while she looked in the mirror and tried to move her eyebrows in a way that might loosen her hairline ever so slightly. She hardly recognized her face without wild strands of hair falling into her eyes. Still, she could tell she looked beautiful in an objective, "blushing bride” kind of way, even if this hadn’t been the look she necessarily would have settled on herself. Perhaps that was why her mother had picked it.
Evanora stepped gracefully in front of Agatha with something in her hands. She lifted her arms above Agatha’s head and not quite as gracefully shoved a white pearled hairpiece into the front of Agatha’s updo. This quickly undid all of the hard work Agatha’s clever eyebrow movement had done, and she had to hold back a wince as the sharp edges settled far too close to her scalp for comfort.
“This hairpiece,” her mother began, clearly oblivious or just not caring about the pain Agatha was in, “comes from a long line of women in our family. Generations of Harkness women have worn this on their wedding days, including myself. You will make us proud and wear it with honor, yes?”
Evanora’s eyes hardened on Agatha’s as though she already knew the answer Agatha would give, but was skeptical nonetheless. Even on her wedding day, Agatha was certain her mother would put her in her place if she stepped a toe out of line. It would be easier, Agatha reasoned once again, to simply comply. Taking a nervous breath, Agatha nodded.
“Yes mother,” Agatha replied, looking down and then into her mothers eyes. “I can be good.”
She’d never known her mother to smile, not really. But Agatha caught the twitch at the corner of her mother’s mouth and the slight brightening in her eyes after her promise. She’d pleased her, that much was certain, and Agatha felt some tension in her shoulders release. Not a lot, but enough. Her mother was content with her, at least for the moment, and that was all that mattered to Agatha for the time being. Her heart rate leveled out, no longer worried all that much about the wedding. She would do this; she would be the good daughter her mother had always wanted. She would marry Ralph and build a life with him and it would be okay because, well, what other choice did she have?
Her mother adjusted the pin in her hair, ensuring it was perfectly straight before giving Agatha one last approving look and moving to the other side of the room to tidy the mess the makeup artist had made in the back room of the church.
Mere moments later, Agatha’s heart swelled and she felt herself smile as she heard the familiar ruckus laughter of two boys running down the hallway, growing louder and heading in her direction. Both of them burst through the doors together, startling Evanora, and raced over to Agatha. Their mother followed behind them with a bit of a rushed walk, panting ever so slightly and widening her eyes at Agatha, which made her smile deepen.
“Auntie Agatha!” Billy shouted, sprinting over to Agatha and wrapping his arms around her legs, his head hitting her stomach as she let out a grunt. Evanora, clearly not pleased with the boy potentially causing a wrinkle in her dress, chirped a complaint and went to pull him away from her daughter. However, she found herself backing away when she saw the boys’ mother, Wanda, glowering at her with a slight tilt of her head, as if daring Evanora to take another step towards her son. The boy backed away regardless, looking up at Agatha with a wide grin on his face. “You look like a princess!”
Agatha smiled back at him and crouched down to his level, ignoring how the dress squeezed her ribcage uncomfortably at this new angle. “And you will be the most handsome ring bearer.” She crinkled her nose as his face lit up and she turned to pull Tommy in next to his brother. “Both of you will.”
The boys smiled at each other and began traipsing around the room, talking wildly about how excited they were to be the stars of the show. Wanda grabbed a single pillow off of a couch for them to hold between the two of them and pretend to walk down the aisle. They took intentional and serious steps, treating the practice as though they were preparing for the most important event of their lives. Agatha’s nose scrunched once again as she cheered the boys on. Though she knew as the bride she should want the spotlight solely focused on her, she was relieved by the reminder that she would not actually be alone. Wanda would be easy to spot in the front row. The boys would be right there with her. And, she reminded herself, Ralph would be right by her side, of course.
Though a part of her wished she could simply stay in the back room laughing with Billy and Tommy for the rest of the afternoon, she knew it couldn’t last. Evanora faded back into view after hiding away from the commotion. She stepped in front of Agatha, firmly ordering the boys to quiet down and announcing that Agatha would need to prepare for the ceremony. Agatha bent down, gave each of them a little hug, and sent them on their way.
“Well then,” Evanora started. “It seems it’s time we got set up.”
Agatha nodded, heart beginning to race again. “Yes, mother.”
In a rare show of affection, Evanora brought her hand to her daughter’s cheek, taking a long, studying look at her before backing away. That was, Agatha knew, as much of a tenderhearted moment as she would get from her mother on her wedding day. And she was relieved.
“You have some time while I direct Billy and Tommy to their starting positions. Meet me outside of these doors in no more than two minutes. We wouldn’t want to keep the guests waiting.”
“Yes, mother,” Agatha replied.
“And Agatha,” Evanora was halfway out the door when she turned back to face her. “Be good.”
Agatha gave her mother a nod as she left the room, leaving just her and Wanda standing parallel to each other. She was grateful for Wanda’s presence. Her friend gently grabbed a hold of her arm, comforting and not demanding as her mother would have been. Agatha took a few deep breaths and then looked into Wanda’s eyes.
“Okay,” she said, feigning confidence through a sunken face and a shaky voice. “I’m ready.”
Wanda only nodded. She had tried to talk Agatha out of this wedding for months, finally deciding to simply support her and be there for her best friend when she realized she was never going to change her mind. She certainly wasn’t going to push Agatha too hard on her wedding day. She’d been ready with a getaway car and buckets of booze, but if all Agatha needed was for Wanda to be there, she could do that too.
“I’ll be right in the front row with the boys,” Wanda reminded her reassuringly, earning a nod and a grateful sigh from Agatha as she blinked back a pesky tear. The move didn’t fool Wanda, of course, and the woman gently tilted her head to the side. “You’re still sure, Agatha?”
Even as Agatha had bitten back complaints about her best friend trying to talk her out of this wedding, she’d known Wanda only ever had Agatha’s best interest at heart. The familiar warmth of Wanda’s care settled in Agatha’s chest. She was sure, she told herself. This was what she had planned for most of her life and even looked forward to sometimes. She nodded at Wanda and let out a quiet “I’m sure,” though her voice wavered.
Consigned to having to be okay with doing the best she could think of, Wanda simply gave Agatha a half smile and squeezed her hands. Agatha indulged for a moment and then gently pulled her hands away.
“Best not keep the guests waiting then,” Agatha stated, already making her way towards the door.
————
When she was in high school, Agatha had loved nothing more than having all eyes on her. She would do anything it took to garner just one more laugh. She stole the show in her school’s production of Once Upon a Mattress, consistently raised her voice in class to her teachers’ dismay, and even earned the stamp of “Class Clown” in her senior yearbook. She shouldered the detentions and screaming matches with her mother; she couldn’t find it in herself to quiet down. She simply loved having a crowd watch her, no matter what trouble she got into. When her mother had seen the yearbook Agatha had hidden in her closet, she’d not spoken to Agatha for days.
The summer between high school and college was when her mother’s disapproval finally got to Agatha. Evanora was the hardest on her during those months. She made Agatha extremely aware that her presence in the house was too much for her, that she gave her a headache. The weight of this continually settled into Agatha’s gut, heavy and impossible to ignore. She found herself faced with an unfamiliar self loathing all at once, and suddenly the attention from others didn’t seem quite so important to her. All she wanted was for her mother to find her acceptable.
It was during those months that Agatha quieted down; whether this change was out of a change of heart or self-preservation, she wasn’t completely certain. She pushed herself away, stayed silent, and avoided attention any time she could help it. Her mother had started yelling at her less. She bought Agatha books during her work trips. She even seemed to want to be around Agatha sometimes. All of this was affirmation that Agatha was finally on the right path. She didn’t care about the discomfort she felt in her chest as long as her mother gave her a sturdy nod of approval over dinner.
Agatha carried herself like this through college, meeting Ralph and falling into a steady rhythm with him for the next four years. She forgot how good the laughs had felt, all that attention that her big personality had granted her seemed only like a distant memory. If she wasn’t overjoyed with the way her life had turned out, at least she was content.
On her wedding day, she hadn’t properly prepared for just how many people would be watching her walk down the aisle. It was a silly thing, really, watching somebody walk and then stand for twenty minutes. Though, she supposed, the open bar following the walking and standing had to be incentive enough for most of the guests. She couldn’t blame them.
She held onto her mother’s arm gracefully with one hand and gripped onto her bouquet as tightly as she could with the other. Her grip was strong enough that her knuckles were beginning to pale. She was certain that the entire congregation was looking at her hand. She felt exposed. All of her fears and doubts were on display as she tried to clear her mind and simply place one foot in front of the other. Though she tried her best to keep her eyes forward, she found that looking ahead to Ralph waiting for her at the front of the much too large church only heightened her nerves. She turned her head slightly to the left and to the right as though to find someone else to pay attention to.
God, who even were these people? As she got closer to the front she started to see glimpses of people she recognized: her mother’s friends that had come over for dinner often when she was a child, a few distant relatives, Billy, Tommy, and Wanda, of course. But beyond those few familiar faces, there was no one that piqued her interest.
That was until she turned her head to the left and her eyes settled on someone. A complete stranger, of course, which was likely in this room. But this was a more intriguing stranger. A stranger who was on the outskirts of the seating area, barely in view, walking away from the wedding. She wore a sage green two piece suit with a black undershirt—dressed up, but casual enough that Agatha felt she was able to get to know this person without speaking a word to her. She had her brown hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head and her hands were in her pockets. The stranger respectfully had her head turned downward as she walked quietly out of the room.
For just a moment, however, the planets seemed to align. The stranger lifted her head and found her gaze on Agatha, looking right into her eyes.
Agatha had never been much of a romantic. She’d rarely ever had a reason to be. But in that moment, locking eyes with a complete stranger at her own wedding, she felt the world slow down. It surely was only half of a second, but had her mother not pulled slightly at her arm, Agatha’s gaze probably would have followed the stranger out the door and dragged her feet right along with it.
Her mother had pulled on her arm, though, and she was brought back to the watchful gazes and her soon-to-be-husband watching her walk down the aisle with tears in his eyes. Her heart, the same heart that had beat so steadily when she locked eyes with that stranger, fell to the pit of her stomach as it all began to sink in.
She was getting married. There was no turning back now.
Her mother led her up the two barely-there steps at the front of the room and gave Ralph a kiss on each cheek. She then turned to Agatha, gave her a slight, stoic nod of her head, and handed her right off to Ralph.
It was the first time in her life she’d wished her mother had stayed beside her. The first time she’d ever been comforted by her presence. As long as Evanora was holding her arm, this whole thing hadn’t really begun. But it had, in fact, begun. She was standing parallel to a man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. And why, exactly? To appease her mother?
Well, that was as good of a reason as any, she would guess.
Agatha turned her head and looked to the back of the room, hoping to find the stranger. Instead, all she saw was a flash of sage green and the church doors closing quietly. She turned her head back to the ceremony.
Shortly after taking her place across from Ralph, Agatha felt the world dim and quiet. The preacher’s voice muffled in her ears and she felt like she was floating. If she stayed like that, she could pretend she was in the clouds. Or perhaps outside, under a tree. Maybe she was still sixteen years old, still too young to understand why being the loudest voice in class was such a bad thing.
Even better, maybe the person standing opposite her was the mysterious stranger she’d seen for the first time only moments ago. Had she been more conscious of her thoughts, she would have found this idea strange. She didn’t even know the stranger’s name. But in her half-dazed moment of solitude in such a crowded room, that stranger was who she thought about.
A small part of her mind was still in the church, and she found herself smiling as Billy and Tommy walked up to the blurry figure in front of her, each holding a ring that the shadow-figure took. She heard the muffled voice of the preacher once again, and then that of the blurry shadow, and then she heard herself saying “I do.” She felt warm lips against hers and her hand was holding the shadow’s and it was all over. A song was playing while she walked out of the church. Stevie Wonder, maybe. She walked and walked and then finally she was outside. The cool early September air hit her face and she breathed it in deeply. It was all okay, she assured herself. It was over.
But her moment of peace quickly transformed when she felt the presence of someone next to her. Ralph, she realized. He was wearing a ring on his hand. She looked down at her own and found her engagement ring had practically doubled in size. It was only then that she’d fully realized the depth of what had just happened.
Oh, shit, she thought to herself, but would never dare to speak aloud.
She reluctantly turned to her, god, husband, and saw him smiling. It was the biggest smile she’d ever seen him wear. Her heart fell back to the pit of her stomach and she managed a smile back at him. He kissed her on the cheek and kept them walking forward. Where they were walking, she had no idea.
“C’mon Agatha, we’ve got a party to get to,” he exclaimed, his cadence sounding more like a melody than a phrase.
Right. They would go to the party. The reception, actually. Because they were married and married people celebrated the fact that they were married.
Oh shit, she thought once again. What the hell have I done?