Have you heard about the Marriage Matron? The one who knows 10,000 love stories and how they ended. She does not stop at sunsets or marriage ceremonies. Should your romance be whispered through her chapped lips, your love is doomed. Doomed to drip slowly into despair or plummet screaming into agony.
She lives upon the line between the hemispheres. Follow it down until you find a small, brightly lit house. She does not live trembling in darkened, spooky places. That is what makes her so much more frightening. Her lovesick stories are as common as rain in a rainforest and as devastating as a tsunami. A natural disaster that lives amongst us, not beside. In.
Many brides had travelled down the beautifully paved path to her house wanting to know. Wanting to check if their love was true. If their love was worthy of their envisioned happy ending. She welcomes you into her garden or upon her porch swing to sip tea and smile through her flawless red lipstick. She wears long dresses of dyed linen and smells like lemongrass. Fresh and old, as though time curls around her and flows past her fingertips. She takes her fee with a gentle nod and smile.
I do not know if she is a role that is passed on, a goddess amongst us, or a cursed mortal. But I do know she is real and true. She pulls off a gloved hand to gently press against your quivering fingers, closing her eyes as she listens.
You tell her. You tell your tale. Of love and wonder and joy.
She smiles, the lines around her closed eyes rising, her head tilted in girl-like fascination. This encourages you. It opens a vent within your heart and you splurge, revealing small, intimate moments, happy tidbits, wondrous glances. She laughs when you laugh, she engages so splendidly as you inform her of your lover’s devotion, his looks, his scent, the sound of his laugh.
Finally. When your story is hovering around you, slowly winding down to a finish. You feel confident in your love. You feel listened to, encouraged, enjoyed. Surely this means only good is to follow.
And then horror rises in your throat, bile catching as she slowly opens her mouth. She says in unison your last sentence as though you were reading off a page together.
You shake your head, clasping her hand in both of yours as you silently beg her to stop. She is calm. Not unkind, but not entirely sympathetic either. She recounts a future like a frost upon wildflowers, slowly sucking the colour from your face.
She whispers in a voice so divine you cannot turn away from her. You want to know. You cannot run. You cannot hide. Her voice cuts through your racing thoughts as she tells you the doom of your love. A car crash. A cheating heart. A rage hotter than a volcano and twice as devastating.
For some, it takes over an hour before the horror climbs into their story. They begin happy. A picture-perfect wedding, an age of happiness worthy of a romantic comedy. But it sinks in. A dirty ink that slowly drowns the love until all that is left is the whispering words of a timeless woman.
You are stuck there. Unable to leave until her last syllable is uttered. Until the light you had fed her has been washed away in something so monumentally horrid there is nothing left to do but thank her for her time. You slip out of your place, now slippery with sweat and regret, and stagger away from the house. How drunk on love you had been.
How foolish.
For some. Only a few. She will catch a swinging hand, curling her warm fingers into yours, and whisper something. A spark of light within a drowning love. Those women are the lucky ones. Their burden more like unlit fireworks than boulders.
But most. Most stumble away. Forever changed. Carrying a grief that has not yet been born.
Is it wisdom that she bestows? Fear? Despair?
Or perhaps a warning that love is not a destination. But a journey that must continue past the stained-glass windows and into something… alive. If only for a time.
I was not one of these brides. And yet I strolled up to her gate with such determination nothing could stop me. Not even her curious smile as I neatly settled myself beside her. Not even when she took off her glasses to reveal her eyes were almost colourless.
Still, she held out her hand, and still I took it.
Even when she finished my last sentence and suffocated me with knowledge no one would wish to know. As her words tightened around my neck I felt an odd kind of calm. A peace that cemented my romance in a gold nothing could tarnish.
Peril was not new for my love. It was what had propelled me to the Matron’s door. My footsteps had already been tinged in despair before she had held my hand and asked after my story. Even as I stared into those sheet-white eyes and heard the whispered horror of her voice, I felt something bright and warm cover my heart. I was a doomed man. I was a groom bound for Hades.
And yet.
When she was done, she looked into my eyes, surprised to find me unbroken. Very softly, like spring rain upon a wilting flower, she whispered, “You are not dismayed?”
I leaned in and hugged her. Hugged her tightly as no bride had before and none would likely do after. For she had spoken life into my Vivian. The Matron saw her life beyond mine, beyond a cancer diagnosis whose outcome no doctor could predict. For a long while, tears trickled down my chin, darkening the lilac cotton of her dress. For Vi would mourn me. But she would live. My love would survive beyond my grave.
Thickly I said, “I do not fear death. I fear the despair of my love. You have given me a priceless gift. You have given me her life back.”
Then I placed my hat back upon my head and nodded my farewell. The Matron eyed me curiously, cautiously waving back.
I turned back and, with tears sliding down my face I murmured, “Better to love for a time –”
“Then fear a love never to be.” She finished, staring unblinking after me as I left.
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Have you heard of the Marriage Matron?
She breathes despair into stories long loved.
And hope into stories long filled with despair.
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