She Said Yes

A Short Story by Ali Jerom

What if I don’t want this? I thought to myself as we drove to my parents’ house down some New England interstate. My finger already felt weighed down from the seven-carat cushion-cut stone on my ring finger. The feeling was already so foreign. In my periphery I could see him beaming. His almond eyes wrinkled up at the sides, beige lips pulled wide into a smile. I couldn’t bear to look at him, at my fiancé. This was the man I was going to marry. I was no longer going to be Miss Wheeler, no longer just Lily. I was going to be someone’s wife. Forever. My mother’s face kept appearing in my mind, and next to it, the face of my father. She was eighteen when they became lawfully bound, ten years younger than me. She was ready all those years ago, so why am I not? I don’t have a particularly acclaimed career or life. I could probably do good with some kids to care for, a bustling home to manage, a golden retriever to walk. I should be happy, this should be a no brain-er, an instant yes. And on paper, it was. This was the American Dream. When he got down on one knee and opened that teal box earlier that day, I instantly blurted out an enthusiastic “Yes!” I shouldn’t be surprised, we’ve been together nearly four years, own a town home together in Back Bay, have been looking at adopting a dog. Plus, all my girlfriends have already entered this stage of their lives. We talk about becoming wives and mothers all the time. Or rather, they talk about those topics all the time. Before I met him, I’d indulge in erudite discussions. Philosophizing about what’s to come, about the future in a broad, and intellectual sense. I suppose I do the same now. Just not with academics, and not about Kant. Now, these discussions were coupled with a bottle of rosé around Sunday brunch with young wasp-y stay at home mothers. In all honesty, I’m not really surprised, at all. I just wasn’t ready for the inevitable. I wasn’t ready for this to be my future, forever.

I’m confident that my mother’s probably thrilled. She’s been pestering me about giving her grand babies for years now, bless her heart. I really have no reason to be second guessing this rite of passage. I should be beaming like Ian is, my fiancé. So I fake a smile, throw in a joyful squeal here and there. I do love him. Madly, I think. I do want to spend forever with him, but I just don’t want to look back at this day when Im saddled with newborns and a husband to care for and wish I hadn’t said yes. Nor do I want to look back and regret not saying yes to the life that had been promised in that Tiffany box. I’m sure I’m not alone in these fears. They must be normal, right?

I just can’t help but wonder what dreams my mother had before marrying my father. She was a girl, and girls are always the ones with the vastest imaginations, and she was held back with the tightest restraint–a ring. Then again, I’m no longer a girl but a woman. I haven’t been a girl in some time. I wonder what younger me would’ve thought of today. What would nineteen-year-old Lily have thought of this? Would she be disappointed in me? In my passivity from the passenger seat of a “finance bro’s” white SUV to the thumping of Yacht Rock. Yeah, that’s something she would have scoffed at. In fact, that’s probably what that girl would’ve defined hell as during a seminar. I wonder how different my life could have been had I never met Ian.

Would I be in this same predicament just in a different SUV? Or possibly in a sedan next to a blonde doctor instead of a brunette investment banker? Perhaps this was always my fate. Perhaps I was never meant to be the actress or hippie I had likened myself to be. I find that Bohemian voice in my head reminding me I’m still young enough to yearn for and chase after the free, unconventional life I desired before him. Reminding me that Ian doesn’t get the final say. Yet, I’m closer to my inevitable expiration date as a woman. When I’m no longer in my prime, when I no longer have the flexibility I have now. One day a man like Ian won’t be at my fingertips ready to place a ring atop of one. My chances at producing a nuclear family of my own are dwindling. One day it won’t be cute and spontaneous to leave everything behind, instead it will be reckless and erratic. Did my mother battle these same thoughts when my father placed a ring on her finger? Did these same, tangled, nightmarish thoughts of leaving it all behind arise for her all those years ago? Did she fantasize about running away from the clutches of conventionality for some undermined destiny? She’d probably never tell me. She would likely reassure me that this is the most logical choice, choosing yes to an eternity with him.

I looked down at that heavy, beautiful, sparkling ring. This time, it wasn’t with resentment for the loss of the boundless potential it felt life had in store for me. This time, it was with security in the life that I was being promised. I looked at it with the discipline and responsibility of motherhood, with the devotion of marriage. Which will no doubt be shrouded one day in the fatigue of conventionality as this ring was the rest of my life. Without it, my life would remain unchanged. But with it, my life seemed to finally fall into place in the way I had always been accustomed to believing. Strange how one day, one object, one person can change the course of your life. Someday I will wonder if this was the right choice, saying yes. But that is the regret of tomorrow, and today, today that regret was pushed aside along with the regrets of yesterday.

“One day,” I imagined aloud, “I’ll have a strip of pale untouched skin where it lies. Isn’t that beautiful?” I smiled up at Ian, his brown eyes briefly looking back into mine before turning into the tree lined driveway of my childhood home. I guess this is my future, my today, my tomorrow, my yesterday. And to think, that this could’ve been just some other Saturday morning.