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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Langworthy
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My former husband and I married 44 years ago this week. Every year on what would be our anniversary, I take a moment to reflect on that day. I was a U of M freshman who shared an apartment with friends. He lived in a dorm at a prestigious Indiana college. Love-struck teenagers, we decided when he returned to school after winter break, I’d go along so we could marry in a Michigan town just miles from his school. The age of consent was 18 there; we wouldn’t need the approval of his parents who’d forbidden us to even go steady. Once there, we learned about required blood tests. About the three-day waiting period for a marriage license. The cost of wedding rings.
The morning of the big day, I donned the baby blue mohair suit and navy pumps I’d “borrowed” from my sister’s closet. Gave my hair a last-minute look to make sure it had a perfect flip and waited for my groom in the lobby of the hotel where I’d been staying. We rode the bus to City Hall for our appointment with the Justice of the Peace and waited our turn on a wooden bench in a marble-floored hallway as government workers passed by. A woman with the longest reptilian handbag I’d ever seen prompted me to whisper the childhood refrain, “In came the doctor, in came the nurse, in came the lady with the alligator purse.” My hubby-to-be shushed me.
A secretary motioned us to the justice’s office. She asked about witnesses. We didn’t have any so she rounded up a man in a grey suit and Buddy Holly-style glasses. And the woman who still carried her alligator purse. After we said “I do,” the woman gave me a hug. The secretary gave us a small piece of paper with the eight beatitudes of marriage typed on it. “Blessed are the …” I read as we ate a wedding lunch of burgers and chips at the Mayflower cafe around the corner. We waited for the bus inside the Christian Science reading room. The woman behind the desk looked up as we entered. I told her we’d just gotten married and held out my left hand as proof.
When we returned to the hotel, my husband asked the clerk for the bridal suite. The man looked skeptical until we showed him the marriage license. We followed him to the room where he pointed out the double-sized bed and claw-footed bath tub. Not long after, there was a knock on the door. College buddies of my husband with beer, Fritos, and a wedding card with 60 crumpled one-dollar bills inside. Some of the boys plopped on the bottom of the chenille-covered bed and the mattress gave way, landing on the floor. Jokes and guffaws ensued. I ran into the bathroom in tears. A bit later, my groom knocked on the door, said they were gone. The bed had bed put back in order.
What happened next, I don’t remember. I doubt we’d planned that far ahead. We were just two love-struck kids who wanted to be together forever. Who — for some reason or many reasons — weren’t able keep it together until happily ever after.