After two postponements, I was finally walking toward the man I wanted to marry. Then his mother blocked the aisle and demanded I hide my bare head. My mother asked the pastor for help — and when she returned, Judith was the one demanding that someone put a stop to it.
“Mom, does my dress look okay?”
“Sweetheart, you’ve asked me six times.”
“Seven,” my sister said.
“Thank you, Claire. Very helpful.”
“Seven,”
Claire freed a fold of satin from beneath my heel.
“There. Dad’s been practicing his walk with the umbrella stand, so you can both stop worrying.”
I laughed, and Mom held out the shoebox she’d brought from my apartment.
The ivory shoes inside still had tissue stuffed into the toes. After our second postponement, I’d put them on the top shelf of my closet, behind the spare blankets.
“You can both stop worrying.”
Looking at them every morning had become unbearable.
“Ready for these?” Mom asked.
“More than ready.”
She knelt to help me with the buckles.
Last year, she’d helped me into slippers when bending down made me dizzy.
“Ready for these?”
Now she brushed a little dust off a wedding shoe with her thumb.
I swallowed and looked up at the ceiling until the feeling passed.
“Don’t start,” Claire warned. “I only brought enough tissues for myself.”
I’d lost my hair during treatment the year before. We’d postponed the wedding once when treatment began, then again when I wasn’t well enough for the new date.
We’d postponed the wedding
The second time, I’d sat beside Ben on our kitchen floor with the calendar between us.
“You know you don’t have to keep planning your life around this,” I’d said. “I… I still might not make it out of this.”
He’d looked at me for a moment, then picked up the calendar.
“Saturday in June? Or are we still avoiding your uncle’s fishing trip?”
“I still might not make it out of this.”
I’d cried then.
He’d stayed on the floor with me until I could laugh about Uncle Rob again.
Now June had arrived.
My dress fit, my shoes were on, and Ben was somewhere beyond the preparation-room door, waiting to marry me.
I’d cried
My phone buzzed.
Ben had sent a photograph of his tie: Is this straight?
I typed back: You’re asking the woman who checked her dress seven times.
His reply came immediately: Please just arrive.
Claire stepped back to inspect my hem. “Has Judith seen you yet?”
My phone buzzed.
“She came by while you were finding the flowers,” Mom said. “I told her we needed a few minutes.”
“She moved my centerpiece three times at the rehearsal dinner.” Claire sighed.
“She called me yesterday,” I said. “Asked whether I’d settled on my ‘finished look.'”
Mom stopped smoothing my skirt.
“What did you say?”
“She called me yesterday,”
“That I had. She asked about my hair, so I told her I wasn’t covering my head.”
“And?” Claire asked.
“She said the photographs would last forever.”
Mom set the empty shoebox beneath the chair.
“You didn’t mention that part.”
“I wasn’t covering my head.”
“I wanted one evening where we talked about something else.”
Mom met my eyes in the mirror. “Do you want me to speak to her?”
“No. I told her what I’m doing. She needs to accept it.”
I’d chosen my dress, my earrings, and the way I wanted to look beside Ben. Still, I checked my reflection once more.
“Do you want me to speak to her?”
“Are you sure you don’t want a veil?” Mom asked. “I’ve brought a few options. Not just veils.”
“I want Ben to see me. All of me.”
She rested her hands on my shoulders.
“Then that’s exactly how you’re walking in.”
***
An hour later, Dad took my arm outside the church doors.
“I’ve brought a few options.”
He looked down at our elbows, adjusted his position, then checked again.
“The umbrella stand was less demanding,” I whispered.
“Your sister talks too much.”
From inside came the shuffle of guests settling into pews. Through the narrow opening, I could see the white flowers we’d chosen and a corner of Ben’s dark suit.
Dad took my arm
Dad covered my hand with his.
“Ready?”
“Is it too late to elope?”
“Your mother would find us.”
I laughed. Then the music started.
“Ready?”
The doors opened, and everyone stood.
For a second, all I could see were faces turning toward me.
Then Ben leaned slightly to look past his best man, and there he was.
He smiled before I took my first step. His mouth trembled a little, which nearly undid me.
I’d imagined this walk from hospital beds and our living-room couch, always worrying I’d cry too hard to see.
The doors opened
Instead, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Dad and I made it halfway down the aisle before Judith stood up.
At first, I thought she wanted a better view.
Then she stepped out of her pew and planted herself in front of us.
“Judith?” I said.
Judith stood.
She held a blonde wig over one hand.
The long, shining hair fell almost to her elbow, with two neat braids drawn back from the temples and joined behind the crown.
She lifted it toward my head.
“Put this on. Quickly.”
She held a blonde wig.
I leaned back before she could touch me.
“What?”
“Your bald head is an embarrassment to our family!”
The music stopped unevenly, one last note hanging after the others.
“Mom!” Ben shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Put this on. Quickly.”
“Saving the photographs!”
Dad’s hand closed over mine. I could feel people looking at the wig, then at me.
“Judith, please move,” I said.
“Don’t be stubborn. Everyone’s staring.”
“Because you’re holding a wig in the middle of a wedding,” Dad said.
“Saving the photographs!”
A few guests let out nervous laughs.
I’d been ready to walk into that church without hair.
I hadn’t prepared to stand still while someone announced that the sight of me was shameful.
For a moment, I wanted the doors behind us to open and swallow me.
Ben was only a few pews away. I tried to look at him, but Judith kept lifting the wig between us.
“Everyone’s staring.”
If I turned around, I’d have to walk back past everyone who had just heard her.
If I stayed, I had to stand there while she waited for me to cover myself.
I tightened my grip on Dad’s arm. The shoes I’d finally taken out of their box were planted on the carpet, and I couldn’t make myself take another step toward Ben.
Ben started down the aisle.
She waited for me to cover myself.
“Put that away, Mom. Right now.”
But my mother was already standing.
“Excuse me, Judith.”
“Oh, don’t you start.”
“Claire, hold my purse.”
My mother was already standing.
“Mom?” I whispered.
She looked at me. “You spent a year fighting to get here. You are not hiding today.”
Then she turned to the pastor.
“Could you help me with something?”
He came a few steps closer.
“You are not hiding today.”
She spoke quietly, gesturing toward the preparation room beside the front of the church.
He listened, then glanced at Judith.
“Are you certain, ma’am?”
“Absolutely.”
He stepped aside to let her through.
“Absolutely.”
The church went silent as she disappeared into the room.
He motioned for the musicians to wait, then stayed beside the door to keep the path clear.
Judith lowered the wig and exhaled.
“There. Your mother understands.”
I looked at Claire. She was holding Mom’s purse against her stomach, staring after her.
“There. Your mother understands.”
“What is she doing?” I mouthed.
Claire raised her eyebrows. She had no idea either.
Ben reached us and took my free hand.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m standing here,” I said. “That’s about all I’ve got right now.”
“What is she doing?”
He squeezed my fingers and turned toward his mother.
“You need to sit down.”
“As soon as this is sorted out.”
“It was sorted out yesterday,” I said. “When I told you no.”
Judith glanced toward the pews. “There’s no need to discuss private conversations in front of everybody.”
“You need to sit down.”
Behind her, the preparation-room door opened.
Mom emerged carrying a rectangular case.
She set it on the end of an empty pew and opened the fasteners.
I recognized it when she lifted the lid.
Mom emerged carrying a rectangular case.
Inside were the wigs I’d tried during treatment: the short brown bob, the auburn one Claire loved, the dark curls I’d never quite managed to make feel like mine.
Mom had kept the ones I hadn’t returned or given away.
These were “the options” she’d mentioned earlier.
Judith took a step toward her. “The blonde will go better with the dress.”
These were “the options.”
Mom picked up the auburn wig.
“If wearing a wig is what makes someone acceptable in these photographs,” she said, “I’ll wear this one.”
She pulled it onto her own head.
The auburn fringe sat a little crooked above her eyebrows. She adjusted it with both hands and looked straight at Judith.
“I’ll wear this one.”
“Well? Do you approve, Judith?”
Claire pressed Mom’s purse into the hands of the nearest bridesmaid.
“Have you got the bob?”
“Under the curls.”
“This is childish,” Judith said.
“Do you approve, Judith?”
Claire put on the brown wig.
One bridesmaid picked up the curls; another reached for the short silver one.
“May we?” the first asked me.
I nodded. My throat had closed too tightly for anything else.
These were the women who’d helped me compare those wigs when I could barely look at myself in the mirror.
“May we?”
Now they put them on beside me.
Dad leaned toward Claire. “Anything left for me?”
She handed him a light brown wig and helped him pull it over his carefully combed hair.
“Straight?” he asked.
“Almost. Hold still.”
“Anything left for me?”
He waited solemnly while she adjusted it.
I laughed. It escaped before I could stop it, wet and startled, and Dad looked at me with such relief that I laughed again.
Mom touched my cheek, her auburn fringe still crooked.
“Take those off!” Judith said. “All of them! This is a church, not a costume party.”
I laughed.
The bridesmaids stayed beside me with their wigs exactly where they were.
Judith turned toward the photographer near the side aisle.
“Don’t take pictures of this.”
He lowered his camera.
Judith rounded on Ben, her face turning red.
“Take those off!”
“You’re letting them ruin your wedding,” Judith told him. “Look at your father-in-law. Look at the bridesmaids.”
“I’m looking,” he said.
“Then do something!”
She thrust the blonde wig against his chest. The long hair spilled over his hands, the little braids still perfectly intact.
“You’re letting them ruin your wedding,”
“Make your bride be reasonable.”
He’d already told her to put it away.
Now she wanted him to take over where she’d failed, as though marrying him would make my answer count for less.
Ben looked down at it, then he looked at me.
“Make your bride be reasonable.”
Ben smiled and put the wig on.
The shining blonde hair fell over the shoulders of his dark suit. One braid caught briefly on his ear before he freed it with a finger.
I pressed my lips together. It didn’t help.
Claire made a strangled sound behind me, and a laugh traveled through the pews.
It didn’t help.
Ben tucked a strand behind his shoulder and held out his hand to me again.
“I’m standing with her.”
I looked from the blonde hair to his face. He held out his hand and waited, just as he’d waited beside that calendar for me to choose another date.
I took it.
“I’m standing with her.”
There would be no whispered request to wear the wig for one photograph, no asking me to give in so the ceremony could continue.
I could stop wondering how much of this I had to tolerate for his sake.
Judith stared at him.
“Take that off.”
He held out his hand.
“You handed it to me.”
“For her! Make her wear it!”
The laughter faded. Ben’s fingers tightened around mine.
“She already told you she doesn’t want it.”
“I was trying to make sure you had beautiful wedding pictures. Now look at this spectacle.”
“For her! Make her wear it!”
I looked at Mom, standing in the wig she’d once helped me put on.
Dad was still beside me. Ben waited without trying to answer for me.
“We postponed this wedding twice,” I told Judith. “The second time, I couldn’t get through a dress fitting without sitting down.”
“I know what happened.”
“We postponed this wedding twice,”
“Then you know how hard I fought to stand here today.”
She opened her mouth, but I continued.
“My bald head isn’t shameful. It isn’t an embarrassment. I lost my hair getting well enough to marry your son, and I’m proud I made it here.”
My voice shook on the last few words. I let it.
“My bald head isn’t shameful.”
“You can stay and respect how I’ve chosen to look on my wedding day, or you can leave.”
Judith glanced past me toward the guests.
“It was only a wig.”
“You called me an embarrassment. In front of everyone.”
“I was offering you something.”
“It was only a wig.”
“You could have offered yesterday, when we were talking. I told you what I’d chosen. You waited until I was halfway down the aisle.”
She glanced at the pastor.
“Can we please get on with this?”
“As soon as you move and let me finish my walk.”
“I told you what I’d chosen.”
She turned to Ben. “Are you really going to let her speak to me like this?”
He didn’t remove the blonde wig.
“She’s given you your choices, Mom.”
I watched her look toward her pew. She could pick up her handbag and walk out. Ben would say his vows with her place empty, and that would become part of this day, too.
“Are you really going to let her speak to me like this?”
I wanted her to stay.
I’d wanted her to look happy when we turned toward the guests as husband and wife.
I kept my hand in Ben’s and waited for her answer.
For a few seconds, Judith stood perfectly still. Then she stepped back into her pew and sat down, pulling her handbag into her lap.
I wanted her to stay.
I waited until she was out of the aisle.
Then I turned to Mom and Claire and the little group gathered around us.
“Thank you,” I said. “All of you.”
Dad touched my shoulder.
“Now can we put these away for a minute?” I asked. “I’ve waited long enough to marry him.”
“Thank you,”
Ben carefully lifted off the blonde wig.
Claire collected the others, and Mom closed the case.
The pastor returned to his place. Ben walked back to the altar, looking over his shoulder at me until his best man caught his elbow and pointed him forward.
Dad offered his arm again.
“I’ve waited long enough.”
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
This time, nobody stepped in front of us.
Ben’s hands were warm around mine. Halfway through my vows, my voice steadied, and I could say every word I’d practiced.
“Yes.”
When the pastor pronounced us married, Ben kissed me with both hands against my cheeks.
***
Afterward, the photographer gathered our wedding party near the church steps.
“Everyone ready?”
“One thing,” I said. “Mom, where’s the case?”
“Everyone ready?”
Judith declined that photograph.
We took it anyway.
Claire straightened Dad’s wig. Mom found her auburn fringe, and Ben settled the long blonde hair over his suit again.
I stood bareheaded beside my husband.
We took it anyway.
Just as the photographer raised his camera, a shining strand slipped across Ben’s eye.
He blew it away.
I laughed, and the shutter clicked.
