Breaking Away
A Story about Choice
Aurelia was the youngest daughter, a small girl, very quiet. She was nearly twenty now and unmarried, which meant that she spent her days tending the garden, helping her mother cook the meals, and serving in the church. Several years ago, she began cooking meals for the sick and the invalid and for anyone who had suffered a death in the family. She had been doing this for so long that she was now a fixture in the local community, and families came to expect that when a new baby was born or a grandparent passed away, a basket of fresh bread and a pot of soup would show up on their door, along with swaddling clothes or medical supplies.
She’d also been assisting Afonso, the doctor, and his wife Maria, and by now she was doing her own rounds, going to the houses of anyone who had fallen or been kicked by a donkey or who had come down with fever. She often went alone.
But she was unmarried, and so when her mother spoke with Beatriz, the local matchmaker, about arranging a match, Beatriz said that it was past time for Aurelia to be married. And so it was that one morning after Aurelia had gathered the eggs and the water and cooked breakfast and cleaned the pots and pans and was cleaning the oven, her mother came to her and told her that the matchmaker would be at their home soon, to speak with her about a match.
“Make sure this place is tidy,” her mother told her. “You know she doesn’t like to see a house out of order. It doesn’t bode well for a wife if she can’t keep an orderly house. I’ll brew a pot of tea. You know how she likes her tea.”
Aurelia knew. She had seen Beatriz come into their home on five separate occasions, when it was time for each of her five sisters to be married. Her mother bustled away to brew the tea and Aurelia finished cleaning the oven. As she went to get the broom to sweep the floor, she felt a stab of fear. She supposed she had always known that this day would come, but somehow it still didn’t seem that it would ever happen to her.
Theirs was a modest home, with a thatched roof, but it had a wooden floor, and that was something. Half the town had dirt floors, but they had a wooden floor and that meant it could be kept clean. Aurelia swept until it was spotless, and then wiped down the table with a cloth, even though she had already cleaned it once that morning. Then she stood awkwardly against the wall and waited. As she did, her heart filled with dread. She wished it would go away. After all, this wasn’t unexpected. But nonetheless, she was afraid.
“Mother,” she blurted out when her mother came back into the room, “Do you know who I am to marry? Did Miss Beatriz say?”
“Duarte,” her mother tossed back over her shoulder. “You know him. He’s only a year older than you. The butcher’s son.”
Aurelia gasped. Duarte was fat and he smelled. He liked to go down to the tavern and get drunk. She knew he had had a wife before who had died in childbirth. The child had died, too. She’d heard rumors, though she’d never known if they were true, that his previous wife had been seen occasionally about the town with bruises on her arms and face.
“Mother,” she said in a small voice.”
“Yes?” asked her mother with some irritation, looking out of the window as if she expected the matchmaker at any minute.
“What if I don’t want to marry Duarte?”
“What did you say?” asked her mother sharply, turning from the window. Aurelia wanted to fall into the wall, but she managed to say it again. “What if I don’t want to marry Duarte?”
“You don’t get a choice,” her mother said. “Beatriz has arranged it already, as she has for almost everyone in this town. She did it for me and your father when we were your age. Your father and I have spoken to Duarte’s parents. They approved, as did we.”
“But I don’t want to marry him,” Aurelia heard herself say. “He’s already been married.”
“And his wife died, poor thing.”
“Can I have a different match?” asked Aurelia.
“What are you saying?” asked her mother. “Nobody gets a different match. What makes you special? Why do you need an exception? Nobody else has ever asked such a thing. Everyone has done their duty. Everyone has accepted their fate. Why is it harder on you than on anyone else?”
“I don’t know,” replied Aurelia in a quiet voice, wishing she were anywhere else. She wished she was out with the old doctor and his kind wife, Maria. She wished she were in the pew at church, muttering along to the Latin prayers. She wished she could go out now and collect the eggs again, even though there weren’t any eggs to be collected.
“Aurelia,” said her mother, “It will go much easier for you if you don’t put up a fight like this. It will go much easier if you decide that you do want to marry him. It will only be harder if you insist that you don’t. Besides, his father has the nicest house in town. Duarte will take over the butcher shop when his father dies, and you will live in the nicest house in town. How can you say no to that?”
Aurelia couldn’t say why, because she didn’t know why. Her mother’s arguments made sense to her. But still she knew in that moment that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t marry Duarte and live in the nicest house in town. She didn’t know why she couldn’t, but she knew. She knew that she couldn’t love Duarte. She knew this as well as she had ever known anything before in her life, but she didn’t say this because she knew her mother would only have scolded her and told her that a fool believed that marriage was about love. Then she’d go about about how Aurelia’s generation had been ruined by novels and stories of romance. Aurelia had never read a novel, for the only book they had in the house was the Bible, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
But just then, Beatriz arrived. She opened the door without knocking and walked right in as if she had every right to be there. She looked at Aurelia’s mother. “Where is the girl?” she asked. Then she saw Aurelia hiding against the wall.
“You are so shy,” she said. “Get my tea. Where is my tea?”
Aurelia slunk off to the kitchen to fetch the teapot. When she returned with the pot and two cups, her mother and Beatriz were already sitting at the table. She poured tea for them and set the pot in the center of the table. Then she sat down and waited for them to speak.
“Do you have saucers?” asked Beatriz after tasting her tea.
“No,” said Aurelia’s mother.
“A pity. Every good home should have saucers for tea. It’s too strong, but it will do.”
“Dearest Beatriz,” began Aurelia’s mother, “we would like to thank you for honoring us with your visit today.”
“Yes. This is my fifth visit to your house, I believe. She is your last daughter?”
“She is our last daughter,” said Aurelia’s mother, not bothering to correct the matchmaker on the number of daughters in her family.
“Well then,” said Beatriz, looking over at Aurelia now and looking her up and down, “Can you work, girl? Do you know how to work?”
Aurelia nodded. She had been to Beatriz’s house when Beatriz was sick with the fever, because Beatriz lived alone and had no one to care for her. She had sat up at night when Beatriz had been sweating and on the edge of death and had cooked for her and had brought food on other occasions. But apparently Beatriz didn’t remember this. Aurelia looked at the table.
“Look up, girl,” said Beatriz. “You are too shy. Duarte’s last wife was too quiet, too. You’d do best to be quiet, but not too quiet. You look as though you want to creep down between the floorboards and hide from me. You should know that he won’t like that.”
Aurelia gulped and nodded. The matchmaker looked back at her mother.
“You told her she is to marry Duarte?”
“Yes.”
“How did she respond?”
“Well…” began her mother, and then paused because she wasn’t sure what to say.
“She didn’t take it well?”
Her mother nodded. Beatriz did too. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it as soon as I saw her. It’s always the quiet ones. Amelia, is that why you are quiet? Because you don’t want to marry Duarte? You know that his father is a wealthy man?”
“Aurelia,” whispered Aurelia.
“What? Speak up, girl.”
“Aurelia. My name is Aurelia.”
“That’s what I said,” said the matchmaker, even though she hadn’t, “answer my question.”
“I… I don’t want to marry him,” said Aurelia.
“You ungrateful girl,” said Beatriz. “Do you know what trouble I have gone to arrange this for you? Do you know what I had to say about you to get Duarte to agree. He needs a new wife now that his wife is gone and since his father has the nicest house, every girl in this town besides yourself wishes me to marry her to him.”
“They can have him,” Aurelia heard herself say and wished she hadn’t. She thought to herself that Beatriz didn’t marry people, Father Andre did, but she knew better than to say this. She wished she hadn’t thought it, either, since it was rude.
“Excuse me?”
“They… I said they can have Duarte,” repeated Aurelia. “If they wish to marry him and I don’t, then why don’t you match him with one of them? I’m sure he won’t mind. You say it took some convincing on your part to get him to agree to marry me.”
“How dare you!” sputtered Beatriz in fury. Aurelia’s mother smacked the table.
“You ungrateful girl,” she said, echoing Beatriz from earlier. “Your father and I have raised you and put a roof over your head and now you reject that.”
“You have insulted me,” said Beatriz, talking over Aurelia’s mother. “You are lucky I have taken pity on you. Most girls are married younger than you. Pretty soon, you will be too old. No man in this town will want to marry you. You are already so small and thin because you work yourself to death. You are lucky I don’t call off the match. I am offended, but you are lucky I don’t take it personally.”
She slammed the teacup down, spilling some tea onto the table and staining the wood slightly. She stood up, throwing her chair down in the process. She looked at Aurelia’s mother.
“I am offended,” she said. “But I don’t take it personally. The wedding will be on Saturday.”
Then she hurried out, slamming the door behind her. Aurelia couldn’t help but let a few tears run down her face. Unfortunately for her, her mother saw.
“You have the gall to cry now?” asked her mother. “You have insulted the matchmaker. I take that back – you should be crying. You are being handed a great opportunity, a great gift, and you are spurning it. You are lucky you haven’t ruined your life with your obstinance.”
Her mother scolded her for several minutes, telling her how unreasonable she was being and how no man wanted an unreasonable wife. Aurelia felt very small. She wished her mother could understand that she couldn’t marry Duarte. She wished she could. She knew she was being unreasonable. But she just felt so empty inside. She wished her mother could see it from her perspective.
When her father came home, he scolded her too. He told her that he and her mother had accepted their match, that each of her sisters had accepted her match without complaint, and that therefore she had no call to do otherwise. He asked her why she thought she should get a choice. But she didn’t respond. Her father stopped asking her and just went off somewhere. He didn’t talk much as it was, and he’d said all he would to her on the matter.
Aurelia went about her duties in the next days with an aching in her stomach. She took no joy in activities, such as gathering the eggs or cooking soup, which had previously given her pleasure. She awoke on Friday feeling that her life was over.
All day, she worried and worried. Her mind went blank with fear. In the evening, she worked up the courage to speak with her mother again.
“I’m so sorry,” she began. “I wish I could marry Duarte, but I can’t.”
“This again?” her mother replied.
“Please, mother, please just listen to me. Please, that’s all I ask of you. Why did nobody ever ask me if I wanted to marry him? Why didn’t Beatriz ask me before she convinced him to agree to it?”
“What does it matter what you want?” responded her mother. “You’re always so concerned with what you want. Why don’t you ever think about what other people want? Beatriz and I and your father want you to marry Duarte. Duarte wants you to marry him. His family wants you to marry him.”
“But I don’t want to marry him,” said Aurelia more forcefully than she expected. “Beatriz isn’t marrying him. His family isn’t marrying him. You and my father aren’t marrying him. I’m the one who is marrying him. And it sounds from what she said that he doesn’t even want to marry me all that much.”
“You think only of yourself,” said her mother. “Don’t you see how selfish you are being?”
Aurelia began to cry. It started softly, but then it all came at once and she cried loudly for several minutes. Her mother shook her head and waited for her to finish.
“How can you say that?” choked out Aurelia when her tears had subsided. “How can you say that I think only of myself? I never think of myself! I have been nothing but dutiful. I have cooked meals for you and father every day. I have never spoken back. I have always done as I was told. I’ve served in the church. I’ve cleaned every part of this house and never once complained, even when my back ached or when I was so tired I could scarcely stand up.
How can you say that I think only of myself? Every day I am out in the town, dropping off meals, caring for the sick, playing with the little children when they are sick, helping Doctor Afonso and his wife. I’ve even stayed up all night with the matchmaker when she was sick with the fever. I’ve never done anything for myself and I’ve never once asked anything from this community. I’ve given so much, I’ve given everything. And you know what? You know what I realize now? Not a single person. Not you or father or anyone in this town, except for Doctor Afonso and Maria and Father Andre, has ever thanked me. I never asked for it. But still, it would have been nice, at least once to hear that. Instead, you just took me for granted.
Don’t you see? I’ve given you and everyone else everything I can give. This is the only thing I ask. The only thing I can’t give. All I ask is this, that I not have to marry Duarte. All I want from you or from Beatriz or anyone else – and I have never asked anything from any of you – is to have this one wish. Because it’s only a few moments or your life or father’s or Beatriz’s. But it’s all of mine. I can give you everything else. I will give you everything else. I have given you everything else. But this is my life. The only thing I’ve ever wanted from you or anyone else was that when it comes to my life, those few small things which pertain solely to me, that some consideration be given to what I want and how I feel. Instead, you and father and Beatriz and everyone else just make decisions for me and expect me to like them. And then you tell me that I am doing wrong when I don’t.
I never think of myself, but now that I want this one little thing – this thing which is so little to you and to father and to Beatriz and to this town, but which is so big to me for it is all of me and all of my life – because I want to have a say in how my life will be, you say I am selfish?”
“You impertinent girl,” said her mother when she was finished. “You are doing the wrong thing.”
But she said no more, and Aurelia went to bed. She cried softly for several hours until she fell asleep. But she woke again and lay there wishing she could be far away. She felt trapped. She felt that she loved her parents and the people of the community and even Beatriz but now she was trapped. Her back was against the wall and they weren’t giving her any room. She wished she could be taken away.
She had never considered killing herself before, nor had she ever known anyone who had. She knew it was a sin and her soul would go away to hell if she took her life. But in that moment, she wished fervently for death and she hoped that if she felt sick enough, death would come to her before morning.
But it didn’t. When time came to get up and prepare breakfast, she did so mechanically. She didn’t look at her parents while they ate and she found she had neither the strength nor the appetite to do so herself.
At the church, she couldn’t look at anybody. She tried to hide, but her mother didn’t let her. The events passed so quickly. Then it was time for her to walk down the aisle. Her father didn’t look at her while they walked down, but everyone else did. They must have seen the fear and sadness in her eyes. She knew she couldn’t hide it, despite her best efforts. She couldn’t look at Duarte, so she looked at Father Andre. A shadow passed over his face when he saw hers, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, they looked a little sad, too. There was some hesitation in his voice as he went through the litany, as though he found the duty distasteful. When he arrived at the part where he asked if anyone had any objections, he looked right at her.
“Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
But the words caught in her throat. Nobody else said anything. Nobody came to her rescue. The service continued. Then it got to the vows. Father Andre asked Duarte if he would take Aurelia to be his lawfully wedded wife. He said he would. Then Father Andre looked at her and asked her. His eyes were kind, but firm. They seemed to say to her, “this is your last chance. Take it.”
The word came out before she realized what she was saying.
“No.”
There was silence. Several members of the crowd widened their eyes in horror, but others hadn’t caught on yet.
“Could you say that again please?” asked Father Andre kindly.
“No. I will not take him to be my lawfully wedded husband.”
Her mother jumped up. “You can’t do that,” she called.
But Aurelia spoke with strength now. “I can,” she said. “I will.” She turned to look at the crowd. They were the people of her town. The people she had known her whole life.
“All of my life,” she said. “I have done things for you. For each of you. I have never asked you anything for myself. Now, I am going to do something for myself.”
She saw Doctor Afonso and Maria in the crowd and they were nodding. She thought she heard Father Andre whisper, “Go,” but she wasn’t sure.
She went. She glanced quickly at Duarte, who showed no sign of emotion on his face. Then she started running. She ran down the aisle as the onlookers jumped up, but she was out the door before anyone could catch her. As she ran down the street, she heard footsteps following her, and she heard many voices shouting at her. She thought she heard the voice of the matchmaker, but she couldn’t be sure.
She kept running until she was out of the town and into the woods. Then she kept running for some time longer. She had never run like this before in her life, but she felt strong now. Her fear had all gone. She knew now that she would never again see anyone she’d ever known, but she did not feel sad. She felt joy. She had broken away.