My family kept warning me about Lenald, but I trusted the man who remembered every small thing that mattered to me. Then, on our wedding night, he did something that stunned me. Once I understood why, I knew I had to do something drastic, even if it meant losing someone I loved.
I met Lenald in a grocery store checkout line when I was 25.
The bottom of my shopping bag split open, sending apples, a bottle of water, and three chocolate bars across the floor.
A man in heavy black boots crouched to help.
I was 25.
Silver rings covered his fingers, and tattoos disappeared beneath his sleeves.
I snatched up a chocolate bar.
“Please pretend you didn’t see the emergency chocolate.”
He collected the other two.
“Three emergencies?”
I snatched up a chocolate bar.
I laughed.
He had dark eyeliner, shoulder-length black hair, and my last apple in his hand.
Twenty minutes later, we were still talking in the parking lot.
“Can I buy you coffee sometime?” he asked.
“Do goths drink coffee?”
We were still talking.
“Only if it’s dark enough.”
I gave him my number.
Coffee became dinner, then weekends when we stayed up until two talking about our childhoods and the lives we wanted.
I gave him my number.
Lenald was 36, loved old horror movies and antique jewelry, and called himself a “true goth.”
He wore black even in July.
He also remembered I hated onions, warmed my side of the bed in winter, and once drove across town at midnight because I’d mentioned wanting ice cream.
My family concentrated on how he looked.
He called himself a “true goth.”
After our first dinner together, Mom pulled me aside.
“Melany, something about him makes me uncomfortable.”
“His eyeliner?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. You don’t know him.”
Mom pulled me aside.
Dad asked what I knew about his past, then returned to the age gap.
“You’re 25. You’ve got time to find someone else.”
“I don’t want anyone else, Dad.”
***
Over the next two years, Lenald fixed Mom’s sticking back door and remembered Dad’s birthday. They still asked when he would cut his hair.
Dad asked what I knew about his past.
When he proposed, I said yes before he finished asking.
***
Three days before the wedding, Mom came over to help tie ribbons around the favors.
She sat across from me at the kitchen table, holding her phone while I trimmed the ribbon ends.
“Do you really think he’ll still dress like that after you’re married?”
Mom came over.
“Maybe he’ll give it up one day. Maybe he’ll wear black when he’s 80. I’m marrying him, not waiting for a different version.”
“You could persuade him.”
“I can ask him to change. That doesn’t mean I want to.”
She looked down at her phone.
“That doesn’t mean I want to.”
“Marriage involves compromise.”
“So does having a grown daughter.”
“There’s no need to be sharp.”
I set the scissors down.
“Marriage involves compromise.”
“Mom, he’s happy. I’m happy. Can we please tie these ribbons without discussing how to change him?”
She picked up a favor box and asked about flowers.
I thought we’d finally put the subject aside.
