The New Wives

After their weddings, the new wives hold up their bridal gowns, once stark-white dresses of lace, chiffon, and satin, and sigh. These need to be cleaned, the new wives say.

After their weddings, the new wives take inventory. What they received off their registries, what they received too many of, and what they didn’t receive at all. Their new husbands’ relatives have sent them songbirds, canaries, and blue jays. There’s a rhinoceros in the backyard. And a whale. Where are we going to keep a whale? the new wives ask their new husbands.

After their weddings, the new wives tell their new husbands that they’d like to live somewhere more exotic, like a treehouse, a bird’s nest, or maybe deep in the sea, somewhere where their wedding gifts might seem more fitting. Why couldn’t your family have gotten us something sensible? they say. An espresso machine, new linens, or a lawnmower?      

After their weddings, the new wives’ homes fill up with items they don’t want. Goodwill paintings, an assemblage of seashells, collector Pokémon cards.

After their weddings, the new wives find themselves pregnant and they know for sure that their new husbands aren’t the fathers, that there’s no way they could be. Their babies, they fear, will be kittens, iguanas, and butterflies. They look for books on gestation periods for interspecies children. They Google it, then delete their search histories. Their new husbands are proud, oblivious. They lay their hands lightly on their new wives’ bellies and say how they’ve dreamed of this. And the new wives kiss them nervously, whispering an inaudible I’m sorry into their new husbands’ ears.

After their weddings, the new wives declare that they are quitting their old jobs and getting new ones. They will be promoted in no time—everyone loves a newlywed. They beam and everyone tells them how radiant they look, how well the pregnancy must be treating them, how well married life must be going.

After their weddings, the new wives all meet for coffee on Thursdays and talk about their new husbands, their new pregnancies, and their new jobs. They say how exciting it is to be a new wife, to have this group of friends they wouldn’t otherwise have, to be understood in a way they wouldn’t otherwise be.

After their weddings, the new wives sit with their new husbands in the evening and discuss their day. They casually mention that they are surprised at what it’s like, married life. They say that they thought it would be the same as before, that it would be different than this. And their new husbands agree.  

After their weddings, the new wives give birth and their new husbands are overjoyed, say they’ll stay home with the kids. But the new wives say, Don’t you see it? They gesture to their new children, who are not just kittens, iguanas, and butterflies, but roosters, donkeys, and other animals, too. We have all these horses, frogs, and toads, they say. And still a rhinoceros in the backyard. And still a whale!

After their weddings, the new wives pack their newly dry-cleaned gowns away and say that they had always hoped to have daughters who could wear the dresses one day. And as they say this, they eye the puppies and piglets they’ve pushed from their bodies, who will never grow into the new wives’ wedding dresses, and the new wives say again how they thought it would be different than this. None of this is what I expected, they say.