Wedding Woes

Wedding Woes

Peter was the love of my life, from the time we started dating in our late teens, to the time he passed from cancer in 2012. Still is. We travelled a rocky road, struggling upward on a mountainside, with an ever-present danger of toppling off the edge.

Both raised in alcoholic homes, we repeated the pattern, acting out our intense need of and deep fear of intimacy. After hearing our family of origin stories, a therapist once smiled and said, “It’s no accident you two got together!”

We didn’t tie the knot until our son, Russell, was almost a year old. At that time, Peter was living with me but was holding on to his separate apartment. Whenever he escaped there, I feared abandonment.

I was a schoolteacher. Canada Day weekend marked the beginning of a much-needed reprieve. My mother invited the three of us to her cottage. When Peter balked, she insisted. A psychiatrist, she could be intimidating.

The next morning, Peter crammed the play pen, baby walker, formula, bottles, diapers, and sleepers into her trunk. Next, he hoisted a case of twenty-four Molson Canadian into the back seat.

When we arrived, Peter dragged all the supplies from the dock up to the cottage.“Try not to drink all my beer,” he snipped, as he loaded the fridge. I ignored him and busied myself with Russell. I’d been working hard to curtail my consumption. Childcare didn’t mix well with excruciating hangovers.

When I retreated to bathe and change the baby, I overheard Mom address Peter in her familiar matter-of-fact tone. I tensed.

“Your son is almost a year old. Don’t you think it’s time to give up your apartment and move in with my daughter?”

Peter cleared his throat. “I’ll talk to my landlord.”

“Good. And have you given any thought to getting married?”

There was a nerve-racking pause in the conversation. Finally, Peter answered. “We haven’t really talked about it.”

My heart raced. I secretly yearned for a romantic proposal but suffered in silence.

“Well, it’s time to consider it. You have a family now.”

My hands shook with shame. Clearly, I couldn’t land a man on my own.

For the next few days, Russell sat in his play pen on the dock and gazed at passing boats. He tore around the cabin in his walker, colliding with Mom’s ankles as she cooked. “You’re a going concern!” she laughed. Her love for her grandson was unconditional.

When we returned to the city, I waited for Peter to raise the issues of moving in and tying the knot. He didn’t. So, I consumed a jug of wine for courage, ready to ambush when he returned from a night out.

“Do we have a future?” I ranted. “I deserve to know your intentions.”

“What’s your problem?” he rasped.

“Do you intend to move in?”

“I guess so,” he mumbled.

“It’s time we got married. Russell is almost a year old.”

“If that’s what you want, find out what we have to do,” muttered Peter. Not exactly the romance I craved!

Taking charge, I applied for a licence and purchased two gold wedding bands at a pawn shop. I informed Peter that the ceremony would take place on August 27th at the Old City Hall.

You’d think he was being led to slaughter.

“I’ve given notice at my place,” he barked. “I hope you’re satisfied.”

Whenever Peter came home, he slammed cupboard doors and fired criticisms from his pellet gun.

“Why are you watching that shit?” he barked as I watched TV.

“Why is Russell crying?” he accused.

“The meat is dry!” he muttered as I dished out our portions.

“Then don’t eat it!”

“Fine!” he shouted and bolted out the door.

Russell, fine-tuned to the tension, whined, and fussed like a creaky door.

On August 25th, I packed up a suitcase and escaped to Mom’s. In full martyrdom, I left a scathing letter on the kitchen table:

I’ve taken Russell to my mother’s place. If you don’t want to marry me, fine. I’ll be at City Hall on the 27th. If you don’t show up, I’ll know where I stand, and you can be rid of us for good.

Mom endured my whining with a sigh and shrug of her shoulders. My brother Edward reluctantly agreed to be a witness.

“Why you two had a kid I’ll never know. You’re the product of a screwed-up family. So is Peter. Don’t get married! You’ll only end up divorced.”

I endured the verbal lashing. Maybe he was right.

Despite the dubious outcome, I’d packed a simple, white, knee-length dress for the wedding, and took it to the dry-cleaners to freshen it up. I imagined appearing before a Justice of the Peace in appropriate attire, waiting bravely to be stood up. Peter would regret not coming. I’d forge ahead as a courageous and dedicated single mother.

On the morning of my so-called wedding, I arose with a queasy stomach.

Mom agreed to watch Russell while I tended to business. I dashed to the dry cleaners to fetch my white dress. When I removed the plastic wrap from the garment, I gasped at a conspicuous scorch mark.

“I can’t wear this. They ruined it!” I wailed.

“Calm down,” said Mom. “You can wear one of mine.”

She tore dresses off their hangers and flung them across her bed. I hated the potato-sack frocks with ugly floral patterns. Finally, I seized a somber, dark brown dress with a V-shaped neckline. It fit, and I looked as if I were attending a funeral.

Edward wore a garish, green, and white-striped golf shirt. Sunglasses poked out of his breast pocket.

As we were dashing out the door to catch the Queen streetcar, Mom offered a parting comment. “Oh no, there’s a grease stain on the back of the dress. I must have forgotten to take it to the cleaners.”

As we headed downtown, I babbled about my appearance and how I’d be stood up. We reached Bay Street a few minutes early. “You need to calm down,” muttered Edward, hooking my elbow and steering me into a bar. He ordered me a double martini, which I gulped despite the awful taste. A combination of light-headedness and martyrdom provided an interesting buzz, so I ordered a second, and drained the glass as quickly as possible. It was time to go.

Edward supported me under the armpit as we stumbled across the street and up the stone steps of the Old City Hall. I spotted Peter pacing back and forth in the lobby like a caged tiger. He wore a plaid sports jacket and open-collared white shirt. We locked eyes. He had a sheepish smile on his handsome face. Gordon was with him. The four of us exchanged nervous greetings.

Oh my God! Now I had to go through with it! We found the office of the Justice of the Peace. Waiting on one of the benches in a noisy hallway, we watched other couples scheduled before us. A veiled woman paraded in a floor-length, lacy white gown, and clutched a bouquet of pink and white roses. She and her tuxedo-clad husband-to-be entered the office with an entourage. I thought about the grease stain on the back of my dress.

A photographer offered to take our picture for twenty bucks. Peter shoved a bill in his hand. We were summoned. A burly, white-haired man with a sweaty brow recited phrases in monotone, and brusquely instructed Peter and me to repeat them. I couldn’t remember what to say. My slurred speech was contagious. Peter stuttered. The Justice stammered. We faltered through our vows.

Peter jammed the ring on my finger as the photographer flashed a blinding light in our eyes. Papers were signed, and we departed like items on an assembly line.

I pulled out the wedding photo for a look. We resembled two wide-eyed deer about to become roadkill.

My brother took us back to the bar to celebrate. We got hammered. Finally, we poured ourselves into a cab and dropped Edward off at Mom’s.

“Have you got any more to drink at your place?” slurred Gordon.

I glared at Peter and kicked his shin with my shoe.

Wincing, he said, “We’re really tired.”

The message thankfully penetrated Gordon’s polluted brain, and he rolled out of the taxi at the Edgewater Hotel for “a few.”

Back home Peter and I made lazy, drunken love, and confessed how each of us had feared the other wouldn’t show up. He apologized for being a “grumpy bear” and I hugged him close. I lapped up the affection, hoping he’d still feel the same in the morning.

We had many rocky years ahead. We loved, laughed, fought, separated, reconciled. In our early fifties, we achieved recovery in twelve-step programs, and were gifted with compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude for our life-long, shared memories.

Peter – forever loved. January 26, 1950 – April 15, 2012