Begin Again

Chapter 14

Leah looked into the mirror and played with one of the small doves decorating the dresser. It was her wedding day.

When she was a little girl she and Manang Tiffany used to play dress up. They would look through Nanang and Tatang's wedding album and try to re-create Nanang's wedding dress with old white bedsheets and lacy table drapings. Leah always cherished her turn to be the bride. She would stand in front of the mirror wearing her 'dress' and 'veil' and would imagine the church, the color of her bridesmaids' dresses, the flower bouquet she'd be holding, and the cake at the reception. At eight years old she barely even thought about her groom. He would be some boy, nice looking and willing to do anything she asked. She cared more about the act of getting married and didn't even think of the marriage itself. She didn't understand what marriage was yet.

When Leah was fourteen, she and her best friend Chloe made a scrapbook of their dream wedding. Chloe's older sister had gotten married the year before and Chloe had found a stack of wedding magazines in her old bedroom. They had painstakingly cut out pictures from the magazines and glued them into the scrapbook, imagining every detail of their dream wedding. Chloe moved to Canada with her family and though she and Leah had tried to keep in touch through email and AOL messenger, it became difficult when Leah didn't have a computer at home and barely had money to use the computer shop. She and Chole lost touch after a few months. That year, Manang Tiffany discovered she was pregnant. The father, the man that was supposed to be her dream groom, her future husband, left her without a word. Leah listened to her strong older sister crying sister herself to sleep at night. She threw away the wedding book. Dream weddings were just childish fairytales.

When Leah was twenty-one, she had her first wedding. It was to a man that she had only known for a few weeks and that she couldn't be in the same room with for two minutes without getting into an argument with. He was cocky, infuriariating, overly confident, too aware of his own good looks and also...unexpectedly kind in his own quiet ways. Leah has literally seen worse prospects for a fake husband. But as she prepared herself to walk down the small aisle of the San Francisco court room, Leah's stomach and chest felt heavy with guilt. This was a betrayal of the values that her Tatang had raised her with. When Leah had graduated college she had asked Tatang why he had never remarried after Nanang's death, or even tried to date other women. She had told him that she and Manang Tiffany were old enough now to accept a step-mother, if it meant that Tatang would be happy. Leah would never forget what Tatang had told her. He said that when he had made his marriage vows, he had promised God and he had promised Rhona that he would only love one woman for the rest of his life. That promise was sacred to him. It didn't matter that she was no longer in this world, Leah's mother still lived in his heart and he would love only her until the day he dies. That was how marriage was supposed to be, Tatang had said. And now here Leah stood, ready to make a vow to someone that she had no intention of keeping, because she didn't love the man she was marrying. She was afraid of what her Tatang would think of her, of how much it would disappoint him when he learned of this. But she was even more afraid of losing him early to a sickness that could be treated if they had the money. She was doing this so that her family could have a better life. That is what Leah told herself as she walked down the aisle. Until she met Clark's eyes and she couldn't think about anything at all.

When Leah was twenty-two, she was preparing for her real wedding. The man that she had married for her green card had become the greatest love of her life. A twist that Leah couldn't have seen coming. But nothing was going according to plan. The church that she had always dreamed of getting married in was tainted by her mother's betrayal, their wedding budget was so meager that Leah couldn't have half of the things she had dreamed of as a little girl. But she was marrying the perfect man so those things didn't really matter to her. What did matter was that Leah could not have her mother by her side as she picked out her dress and on her wedding day. Even if Leah could find it in herself to forgive Nanang just enough to let her into the wedding festivities, she would never dream of hurting Tatang and Manang Tiffany that way. So she put on a brave smile for Clark and pretended it didn't matter. That it didn't break her heart to have to cast aside her own mother on her wedding day.