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O casamento. Chapter 1
I don’t like that he’s waiting at the altar, it’s so patriarchal and old-fashioned and American. My father isn’t here to walk me anyway so what’s the point? High heels like daggers, each bridesmaid in a bloody red dress, all smiles and tears.
The priest reminds me of my auntie’s ground floor neighbour, sweet and patient to all the kids from the neighbourhood, with his spotted dog and pink geraniums in his garden. Everyone loved him. He baked cakes and lent people his gardening tools. ‘Why is he single?’ the auntie kept asking. ‘He’s the perfect husband.’
Several years later I saw him on the news, arrested for murdering his wife 20 years prior in a foreign country, I forgot which one now. Was it Brazil?
Anyway, the priest is saying something. I could swear he looks like this neighbour. When he got arrested, my auntie took his dog in but he was never the same again. Can dogs get depressed? Surely they can.
I really don’t know what the priest is saying. Is he speaking Portuguese? They do speak Portuguese in Brazil, don’t they?
It all starts making sense now. Katie, my chief bridesmaid, the one that never wavers and has all the answers ready when you need them, is mouthing something with her lipsticked lips. I can’t lip-read, I’ve never been good at it. And now she’s trying to say something in Portuguese…
