Chapter 11 Caterina
CATERINA
Cayce: Tonight: think about you on your knees and my hand under your jaw, lifting your chin. Be a good girl and remember how I make you breathe.
Caterina: Bossy. I have a class and the professor’s looking at me.
If I hadn’t been raised my entire life to honor patience and portray purity and innocence, I’d be screaming right now.
Instead, I count the windows around me like I haven’t had them memorized for years.
Late afternoon light slants through the high windows of St. Brigid’s and turns the dust into quiet confetti.
The altar is bare except for a white runner and a pair of brass candle stands that look like they’ve been here since the parish was more Irish than English.
Aoife’s clipboard sits on the front pew like a small general.
Tiernan is a darker shape by the side door, running a finger along the seam of the molding as if he’s checking it for sins.
Cayce stands at the top of the aisle with his hands in his pockets and his attention on me.
Not the room, not the men trickling in to pretend we all understand the choreography—me.
It feels like being chosen for a game I didn’t agree to play.
It feels like being watched by a man who thinks “watching” is a form of keeping.
“Hello, little saint,” he says when I reach him, his gaze running over me. It doesn’t sound like a nickname. It sounds like a fact he has decided.
“Rehearsal,” I answer, because my mouth needs something to do. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“That’s why Aoife’s here,” he says, deadpan. “To prevent homicide by pew and tell us what to do and when.”
“Pews do maim,” Aoife calls over without looking up. “I’ve lost brides to splinters and superstition. Not on my watch.”
I’m in the turquoise pantsuit my rebellious streak insisted I wear. Pru insisted on doing my makeup, which today means mascara and dignity I’m wearing like a shield.
“Stand there,” Aoife says, pointing at the start of the aisle. “Walk when I cue you. Don’t rush.”
“Definitely not in a hurry,” I mutter.
“Just focus on the man you’re marrying,” she says sweetly.
I take my spot at the rear of the aisle.
The doors are propped open. The vestibule smells like wet coats and hand sanitizer; the breeze slipping in like we invited it.
People I don’t know are gathering in the pews, cousins of cousins, men who nod without smiling, women who look like they could run a kitchen and a political campaign at the same time.
A cluster of older aunties stage-whispers about turquoise like it’s a scandal and a blessing all at once.
Pru bumps my shoulder. She’s in black skinny jeans and a sweater that makes the old ladies frown because it hugs every single one of her ample curves. “If he so much as laughs at your suit, I’m opening a can of whoop-ass.”
“He approved,” I say.
“That doesn’t count. Men ‘approve’ because they think they’re kings.” She jerks her chin toward Cayce. “Yours might actually be one.”
“He reminded me,” I say, “that I will be queen to his king.” I keep my voice flat so she hears what I think about chess metaphors.
Pru’s eyes light. “Did he now?”
“He said it comes with responsibilities.”
“Oh, did he now?”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“I’m warming up,” she says. “Just in case I have to bring out the monologue later.” She softens. “How are you?”
“Standing up,” I say. “That seems to be the assignment.”
She squeezes my hand and then slides away as Aoife waves her over to help bully a flower girl who is two and very sure of her own agenda as a princess in flowers.
“Ready?” Aoife calls to me. “We’re going to practice the walk and the turn. Don’t worry about vows yet. That’s a tomorrow problem.”
I look to the front. Cayce’s gaze is steady. Not the soft I glimpsed in the confessional. Not the street-edge he uses on other men when he glances away from me. Something between: a closed hand I could press my palm to if I picked the right moment.
“Walk,” Aoife says.
I walk.
The first seconds are awkward because I’m thinking about walking. Then my body remembers how to move in a straight line without narrating it to myself.
Eyes forward. I’m aware of the mouths that stop whispering as I pass, the way two young men stand up a little taller like showing off their shoulders will change anything.
I don’t look at any of them. Not directly.
I look at the man who asked me to wear a black dress with no panties and didn’t complain when he got a full-body turquoise pantsuit instead.
Halfway down the aisle, I notice Tiernan and Pru near the side door.
They’re bickering, which means Pru is talking with her hands and Tiernan seems to be saying three words per minute to make her madder.
She points at the security camera tucked into the choir loft.
He shakes his head. She says something about angles.
He says something about permissions. Aoife pretends not to hear because Aoife likes to let other people work out their problems as long as they don’t mess with her agenda.
I reach the front. Cayce doesn’t move. He doesn’t offer his hand because this is public and he doesn’t seem to do anything in public.
I stop at the step below him and tilt my chin up in a challenge of wills.
He lowers his head the smallest fraction, acknowledgment of my action and the rebellion I’m making.
“Again,” Aoife says, clapping once. “But slower, and at the end I want you to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and look at the altar like it’s real.”
“It is real,” I say.
“Then treat it that way,” she shoots back in her no-nonsense way.
We reset. I walk. At the front, I step up one step so that I’m next to him and then pivot to face the altar as directed. It feels less like surrender than the first time—more like choosing where to put my feet because if I don’t, someone else will decide for me.
“Good,” Aoife says. “Cayce, you will tell the priest if any change in security affects the order of the service. He does not want to be surprised by men in the side aisles with wires in their ears.”
“He won’t be surprised,” Cayce says without looking away from the altar. “My teams run like a well-oiled machine. They’ve already presented him with all of the potential plans.”
“Good boy,” Aoife says, distracted as she scribbles. Someone else would get their throat cut for calling him a boy. Aoife gets a pass.
A low voice to my left distracts me. “You look lovely, Caterina.”
I don’t startle, but I do flick my eyes over.
Nico stands three pews back, hands in his pockets, hair in that cared-for mess that says he thinks girls will see it and wonder what it would feel like against their mouth.
“Thank you,” I say, neutral.
“Turquoise,” he continues. “Bold.”
“Aoife talked me into it.” I lie.
“I thought you didn’t need talking into anything.” His smile doesn’t look like kindness. “When I heard about the wedding, I wasn’t surprised. I did think you’d choose differently.”
“Differently how?”
“Differently from him.” He flicks his gaze toward Cayce’s back and then back to me. “You always struck me as the type to pick your own trouble. And I offered you a change.”
“I did,” I say.
“Is that what you’re calling it?” Nico murmurs. “Trouble?”
There’s a ripple along the left aisle. Heads turn.
An older woman arrives like a quiet storm. She’s small, in a dark coat, hair blunt and red and uncompromising. She nods at the usher who thinks he can show her to a pew, then chooses her own—end of the row, aisle seat, hands folded on her purse like she’s ready to use it as a weapon.
Cayce notices the shift in air and turns. His face changes for the older woman in the way that makes the hard men in the family pretend to look at their feet. He steps down and the rehearsal halts around us, willing or not.
“Nan, I’m glad you’re here.” He kisses Nan’s cheek, says something deliberately soft, and she hums approval like a woman who very rarely gives it.
Nico watches the exchange with a mouth that curdles at the edges. “He plays the room well,” he says.
“He doesn’t play the room,” I say. “He owns it or he leaves it. The fact that you don’t know that is astounding.”
“Big words,” Nico says. “We’ll see if he still gets to use them after the wedding.”
“Is that a threat?” I ask.
“A prediction,” he says lightly, as if we are discussing rain. “Families change when contracts and money gets involved. Old business comes up. Old alliances. You never know who owes who until the bills come due.”
“Gentlemen,” Aoife calls, making “gentlemen” sound like “children,” “if you’re done measuring yourselves, I need my bride and my groom to stand where I put them. We’re doing lines.”
Nico turns the smile back on. “Later,” he says, and slides away to charm an auntie.
I stand in my place. Cayce returns to my side. His attention brushes my cheek like the weight of a hand without the touch.
“What did he say?” he asks.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“I didn’t ask if you could handle it,” he says. “I asked what he said.”
“Paper changes families. Bills come due. He likes the sound of his own voice so I let him talk and corrected him about his nonsense.”
His mouth doesn’t curve. “He’ll keep it down during the Mass.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He’ll keep it down,” Cayce repeats, and in that quiet way he has, the decision is already made.
Aoife gives us the order for the procession, the names of the people who will pretend they know what to do, and the way to step back from the altar so we don’t knock anything over and become a cautionary tale.
She runs us through the first exchange. We don’t say vows.
We practice where to stand, when to turn, what to do with our hands.