The wedding day.

My mother looked over my shoulder into the mirror as she affixed my veil. Our eyes met in the reflection. “Are you sure?” she asked.

We are not ones for intimate conversations, my mother and I. Her question seems to cross a tacit line. We talk about other things: knitting projects, pets, the people we have in common. She is happy to have me out of the house, and I am happier to be gone. Our relationship is always tentative.

“Of course,” I say. It is the only possible answer.

She just nods and reaches for another bobby pin. The room returns to quiet, with the muffled chatter and giggle from my bridesmaids just barely audible through the wall.

When she finishes, I look at myself again – or, at least, a prettier version of myself. I am a bride. The photographer comes into the room and swirls my white fabric this way and that, tilting my chin, demanding a reflective look. “Now wistful,” she urges, pushing my head down so that I am looking at my bouquet. “Good.” She takes a picture of my shoes and then disappears. My shoes? I find it odd.

My mother has left – she may have offered a destination, but I didn’t hear or wasn’t listening. I can see the requisite limousine waiting outside of the window, and it is like a purer version of a prom.

“Are you sure?”

I still hear her question. I wonder if I shouldn’t feel more uncomfortable. Nervous? Anxious? Something. It is, as they say, the biggest decision of my life. I have had nightmares for months about this day. My dress would be locked up in the alterations shop, leaving me to walk to the altar in my cut-off shorts, or no one would show up, and we’d be left paying for nearly 200 plates of uneaten filet mignon.

Today, though, I am calm. I slept the whole night last night, even in the unfamiliar, uncomfortable hotel bed. During hair and makeup, my bridesmaids marveled at my peace.

What is there to be scared of? I have made the right choices. We courted in college, having met in a study lounge late in our sophomore year. Whispering, he asked to borrow my highlighter, and we laughed about its being pink. He was a business major, an acceptable major. He wasn’t in a frat, and he ran cross-country. Our first date was an on-campus concert with a fizzling band, and we walked to WaWa for coffee afterwards. In college, dating isn’t much about dates; no one has any money, so it is quickly just a companionable thing – hanging out in dorm rooms or apartments, meeting up in the cafeteria, going to movies or parties with everyone else on the weekends.

We continue on our path after graduation. He treats me well. I get flowers on Valentines’ Day, a thoughtful card on my birthday. I do his laundry. We get grown-up jobs and save for down payments. We don’t live together because maybe this isn’t the right thing. We are what is expected. He proposes over the requisite fancy dinner, down on one knee after dessert is served. I, of course, accept. He takes his buddies fishing on a lake for his bachelor party. I invest in lingerie. We meet with a realtor and sign an offer on a respectable Cape Cod in the suburbs.

Am I sure?

What is there to doubt?

This is what it is supposed to be. I have a diamond on my ring finger, and it will gather with several colleagues trapped in a platinum band this afternoon.

I find myself wondering at the future. It has seemed that my life would stop at this moment. I will be married. I will be complete. The tension will end, because – after all – married life is settled and calm. I will have a name change and vows on DVD to affirm my self-worth. On Saturdays, I will scrapbook, and he will mow the lawn. We will meet friends in the evening for beers; the boys will eat grease, and the girls will nibble at salads. It is what is supposed to be, how things should go.

Am I sure?

I check the clock on the wall, and I leave the bridal suite.