Chapter Text
I remember the sinking feeling of seeing Alice at the end of the aisle. Her dress was beautiful, all dolled up for an, at the time, loser like me, who could barely get his tie straight as she walked up to me. I didn’t tear up, but I did start to think that this is less like a rom-com and more like a horror movie.
I was still reeling off of everything I’d drank, sucked and snorted at my bachelor party, trying to catch up with the things my body needed, or thought it needed, head swimming with messy, confusing memories. To even try and recall those memories, the memory of those memories, it would be close to impossible. But Alice walking down the aisle, that I can remember.
I, and a few select others in the audience – my parents, her parents, maybe a couple nosy aunts – knew she was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted to marry me just months before now, and yet here we were. Despite this, she’s smiling at me. We’re in this church in Newark, somewhere near Independence Park, the one her parents go to, and it’s like I can feel Jesus’ eyes staring down at me, like he’s talking in my head.
“Daniel,” He tells me, “your palms are sweating.”
“Yeah,” I say back, “I’m getting married, it happens.”
“Daniel, we both know that isn’t the only reason.”
“So I did a couple lines, alright? Blow me, I don’t have to worry about your judgment for another few decades.”
His bronze eyes bore into the back of my head. “That’s confident of you to say. What says you don’t perish tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day? How are you so confident that you will survive even this moment?”
I smile back at Alice now, and I can almost see her blushing. That, or I can actually see her makeup – I wouldn’t get a prescription for eyeglasses for another 10 years. “Because I have to. I survived a lot worse.”
“Oh, Daniel,” he says to me, shining in all his metallic judgment behind my head, “I know that you have. And yet, our lives have not been set in stone. We do not get to be our own rulers, our own judges of life and death.”
I just shake him off of my shoulders as she takes my hands in hers. “Well, tough luck, ‘cuz I’m telling you right here and right now, that I’m seein’ this through ‘til the end. The real end. The credits rolling, the acknowledgements written, the curtains close. I just started on my life, I won’t stop now.” And in that moment, I stared my future in the face, and looked down at her belly briefly – my real future, and I knocked Jesus out of my head ‘til the end of the ceremony.
Chapter 11
Vacuuming on Valium
Alice and I were married for about a year and some change before things really started to settle in, for the worse.