Chapter 24: Vows

Gianna's POV

We were married on a Saturday in November, in a glass hall above Lake Michigan, with the microphones on.

There were two hundred guests.

My mother sat in the front row in dark blue, with her hands folded and her eyes already wet.

Beside her sat the old Landolfi housekeeper, in the first hat she had ever bought.

Behind them was the old firefighter from Savannah, with his cane across his knees.

The old boss from the Chicago table sat on the other side. The moustached boss had brought his wife.

My father was not there. He had not been asked.

Lidia was.

She sat at the very back, alone, in gray.

She had written me a letter two weeks before, one page, with no excuses.

I had not answered it.

But I had put her name on the list.

That morning my mother had given me the eight birthday cards from my father's drawer.

I had opened them in the dressing room, one by one.

Each said the same thing in her hand, with only the year changed.

I am here whenever you want me. Love, Mama.

I had put the last one inside my bouquet.

The music began, and I walked down the aisle on my own.

Nobody gave me away. I had told them I was not a thing to be handed over.

Dario waited under the arch in a dark suit.

His left cuff was open.

He did not hide the scars. They showed at his wrist, pink and silver, in the light off the lake.

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