My Sister Ran Before the Wedding, So I Said I Do novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Consoada

Christmas Eve at the Sequeira house meant one thing, and that was salt cod.

Avó had been soaking it since the twentieth, in the big enamel basin in the cellar.

The whole house smelled of it, along with the oranges and the cinnamon and the woodsmoke from the stove.

It was the Consoada.

It was the night the family sat down together after midnight Mass.

It was the first time since June that I had been in the house with every Sequeira at once.

There were forty-one of them.

I knew most of their names by now.

I had stopped being introduced as the other one in September.

At eleven o'clock, with the potatoes in and the kale not yet on, Avó sent everyone out of her kitchen but me.

"Sit," she said.

I sat on the kitchen stool with a knife and an onion.

She sat opposite me on the high chair she used for peeling, with her cane across her knees.

For a long time she didn't say anything.

She watched me cut.

"You do not cry," she said.

"I did the onions for my mother for twenty years. You learn to breathe through your mouth."

"You do not cry at weddings. You do not cry at feasts. You did not cry in front of Henrique." She looked at me over her glasses. "When did you cry?"

"I don't remember."

"Liar."

I put the knife down.

"When I was fourteen," I said. "In the back of the chandlery. Lidia got into a car with a boy, and Papa said she'd be fine, and I watched the shop clock until midnight. She came home at two. I washed her shirt so Mama wouldn't see it."

"You have been washing her shirts all your life."

"Yes."

"Hm." She put her hand into the pocket of her black dress. "This was for her."

She laid a small box on the table between us.

It was old dark red leather, soft as a glove, and the hinge creaked when she opened it.

On a cushion of cracked silk lay a ring.

A thin gold band, very plain, with a small square emerald set low in it.

"This is Vasco's mother's," Avó said. "My son's wife. She wore it for eleven years, and she died in it. I put it by for the girl he married."

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend