28. Beatriz #2
Camila’s laugh breaks in the middle like a hiccup. “I can’t, Drea. Look at her.”
I can’t look away. A veil appears as if from nowhere, and Lucía pins it into my hair. It floats down my back like light on water.
The chime at the front door rings quietly, and a familiar voice carries over polished floors. “Perdón,” my father says, not loud, not hesitant—something in between. “I hope I’m not late.”
We all turn. He stands there with a framed photo in his hands, his suit jacket over one arm, his eyes already wet.
The framed picture is of Mami at her wedding, laughing, with her head tilted back, veil lifted by a breeze.
For a second I can’t speak. I can’t even move.
Then I do, carefully, because silk crepe and emotion are both slippery, and I step down.
“Papi,” I say.
He takes me in like I’m a sunrise he never thought he’d see. He crosses to us and sets the frame carefully on a side table, then reaches for me with both hands and cups my face. “Mírate, mija,” he says softly. “Qué hermosa.” His voice wobbles on the last word. Beautiful.
Tears rush up my throat. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” he says, no caveats, no conditions. “And your mother would have loved it. She would have made every person in this store clap.”
I laugh, crying. “She would have.”
He turns to the binder on the chair, sees the open page, and his face breaks in a new way.
“I've kept that in the office since the moment she made it,” he says, clearing his throat. “Every year, I call the venue to hold the date, just in case. I didn’t know if it was silly. I couldn’t not do it.
I've done the same for your sister and her circled March date.”
Andrea covers her mouth with her hand and leans into Camila. Camila’s eyes are waterfalls.
“It wasn’t silly,” I say, voice torn.
He nods, eyes shining. “Beatriz,” he says, looking me in the eye the way he does when he wants me to know he means every word, “I raised you to be strong.” He glances at Mami’s photo.
“Your mother raised you to be joyful. Sometimes strength is letting yourself choose joy. I didn’t always know that. I’m trying to know it now.”
He is not a speechmaker. He is not a man of many words. Hearing this from him now... I tear up all over again.
“I’m proud of you,” he says simply, then he turns to Andrea. “Of both of you.” He looks back at me. “And I’m grateful for the man you chose. He fought hard for you, despite me. And he continues to put you first even when things are hard.” He swallows. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
My chin trembles and then I’m in his arms, careful of the veil, careful of the buttons, not careful of anything else. He smells like clean cotton and faint cologne, and when he presses a kiss to my hair, I’m five again and everything is possible.
When we pull back, he wipes my cheek with his thumb like he used to do when I cried over scraped knees. “Mija,” he murmurs, and the word lands in that last broken crack of my heart, sealing it shut.
Andrea pulls him into a hug with me, then Camila somehow wraps her arms around all three of us, and we look like a human pretzel, and I can hear Mami laughing from wherever she is because we’re a mess and we’re perfect.
Lucía gives us space, then clears her throat delicately. “We can talk alterations,” she says when we all step back. “If you want to keep the sleeves exactly like this, we’ll just refine the fit here—” she taps a seam at my waist— “and bustle the train for dancing.”
“Dancing will be necessary,” Andrea says, wiping her cheeks. “No one is safe from dancing.”
“Bless them,” Camila adds.
Papi pulls out his wallet like the old-fashioned man he is. “Tell me where to pay.”
I catch his sleeve. “Papi—”
“Déjame,” he says, smiling. Telling me to let him. “I told you. This is mine to do.”
I nod. “Gracias.” The word doesn’t feel big enough. None of them do.
Lucía takes my measurements, pins, steps back, pins again. We schedule fittings. Camila documents everything, then sends a photo to Andrea and me and says, “I’m making a private album. Caption ideas welcome.”
“‘She said sí to the dress,’” Andrea says immediately.
“Original,” I deadpan.
“Fine. ‘She said sí, Papi paid the bill, and now we all cry.’”
I snort-laugh so hard the veil trembles.
When we’re done, we settle into the velvet chairs and flip through the binder one more time. There are notes about centerpieces and handwritten recipes and even a tiny envelope taped to a page with two pressed petals inside. Andrea peels it open and gasps.
“Mami,” she says, smiling through tears. “Of course you’d press flowers in our wedding binder.”
I touch the petals and think about December.
Fairy lights, candles, and our families close together.
My mind flashes to Alejandro at the end of the aisle in a suit that will probably make him look a hundred times more handsome than he needs to be.
The way his eyes will find mine and not let go. The way everything else will fall away.
“I can’t wait to walk to him,” I whisper.
Andrea hears it and squeezes my hand. “He’s going to pass out.”
“Don’t say that,” Camila laughs. “Gael will have to catch him and it’ll go viral and then my child will see it one day and ask what clown show we ran.”
We linger as long as Lucía lets us. Papi tucks the framed photo under his arm, kisses our cheeks, and leaves with a promise to be at every fitting he can go to. We take more pictures and then gather our things before we step out into the late-afternoon heat that smells like late summer.
At the car, Andrea pauses, hand on the door. “Wait.”
“What?”
She digs into her tote and pulls out a little zip pouch. From it she takes a small folded note and presses it into my palm. “This was tucked in the binder,” she says. “I didn’t want to hand it to you inside because I knew we’d leave in tears and someone would trip.”
I open it carefully. It’s one line, written in ink I recognize with my whole heart.
For the day you know you're marrying Alejandro.
—Mami
I press the note to my chest and let my eyes close for one second, letting the words settle. Camila wraps an arm around my shoulders and puts her head on mine. Andrea taps her forehead to mine like we did when we were kids, sealing a secret.
“Let’s get food,” Camila says finally, wiping her face. “I’m starving, and this child wants me to eat like Gael.”
We pile into the car, the binder buckled into the back seat like a person.
Andrea drives, Camila controls the music, and I hold my veil in my lap even though it’s still clipped into a mannequin inside the shop, because the phantom of it is draped over me now and I’m not taking it off until December.
At a red light, I stare out the window and see it like a movie.
The aisle is dressed in winter light, and there's quiet right before the music starts. I can picture the way Alejandro will stand straighter when he sees me, the way I’ll feel my body move without telling it to. I can almost hear our friends cheering.
“You’re smiling,” Camila says, watching me in the visor mirror.
“I can’t stop,” I admit.
“Good,” Andrea says. “Don’t. Save the tears for the ceremony. I don’t want to redo your makeup twice.”
“Shut up,” I tell her, laughing.
“Say you love me.”
“I love you.”
“I know,” she says smugly, and honks at a driver who doesn’t move when the light turns green. “?Andale!”
We end the day the way we always should—with cheap tacos and loud laughter and me texting Alejandro a photo of my feet only because I can’t send him the dress and I need to send him something.
He sends back three fire emojis and one heart and then, a second later, I can feel his call coming before my phone buzzes.
“Hey, hermosa,” he says when I answer, voice all warm and with a smile.
“Hey.”
“Good day?”
I look at my sister, at Camila, at the binder, and at the tiny note tucked safe in my wallet.
“The best,” I say. “The very best.”
We hang up only because tacos are terrible cold. The sun lowers, and the sky goes sherbet, but my future snaps into focus like a lens finding its subject. The dress is chosen. The date has been waiting for years.
I'm going to marry the gardener’s son, just like Mami figured I would.