Chapter 14: In Red

The dress was red.

It was the same red as Graziella's heels.

The woman in the shop on Via Etnea pinned the waist herself while Corrado waited outside on the pavement.

She didn't charge him for the pins.

We reached Palermo at a quarter to four.

The bells were already ringing.

The cathedral square was full of black cars, and the steps were full of guests in silk and dark suits.

The same steps I'd never reached last Saturday.

Corrado parked across the square, in front of a bar with its shutters half down.

Two of his men got out of the car behind us.

"You can still change your mind," he said.

"Can you?"

"I came to watch a wedding."

He got out and opened my door.

I put my hand on his arm.

It was steady.

Mine wasn't.

We crossed the square in the sun.

People on the steps saw us.

I watched it travel up them, one face turning to the next.

A woman from Agrigento put her hand on her husband's sleeve.

Two of Gaetano's cousins stopped laughing.

At the top, Saverio's driver stood by the great doors with a list.

He'd driven me on the coast road a week ago.

He'd kept his eyes on the road while Saverio pushed me.

He looked at me now.

He looked at Corrado.

Then he looked down at his list and stepped aside.

Inside it was cool and dim and smelled of lilies.

Every pew was full.

The organ was playing something slow.

Down the long aisle, at the altar steps, Saverio stood in the gray suit he'd chosen for me.

Beside him stood the priest who had baptized me.

And beside the priest, in my place, in a dress with a train three meters long, stood Graziella.

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