Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
But the large bills didn’t seem to make up for the buttons. The curé gave an openly disgusted look into the baskets as he took them from the bridesmaids. “Well, now we need to get the vow part out of the way,” he announced over the microphone. Out of the way. “Sébastien, Laura.”
We positioned our lame photocopied pieces of paper on the kneelers where we could peer at them. Sébastien took my hands and decided to ignore the priest. “Laura Marie, veux-tu être ma femme?”
“What’s that?” the curé barked. “No one can hear you. Speak up!”
Sébastien took a hard breath, kept smiling at me, and repeated himself as loud as anyone possibly could, “Laura Marie, veux-tu être ma femme?”
“They can’t hear you!” the curé called over his microphone.
“Oui,” I said loudly, ignoring him.
“Je te reçois comme épouse, et je me donne à toi,” Sébastien continued determinedly, gazing into my eyes.
“He just said,” the priest interrupted, “ ‘Laura Marie, will you be my wife?’ and . . . oh, and she said, ‘Yes.’ And then he said, ‘I take you as my wife, and I give myself to you.’”
Sébastien and I were still gazing into each other’s eyes, but Sébastien’s nostrils were flaring just a tad.
“Now you try, young lady. Speak up.”
I flicked a quick glance sideways at my photocopied sheet. “Sébastien Michel René, veux-tu être mon mari?”
“Oui.”
“She just said,” the priest interrupted, “ ‘Sébastien Michel René, will you be my husband?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ ”
“Je te reçois comme époux,” I shouted as loud as I could.
The priest heaved a loud sigh over the microphone. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll read it, and then you repeat it. That way people will have an idea of what you’re saying.”
If I crumpled both of our stupid photocopied pieces of paper into a very tight ball, I fantasized I might be able to get him between the eyes. I clasped Sébastien’s hands more tightly to avoid temptation and dutifully repeated my vows after the priest. “Je te reçois comme époux, et je me donne à toi.” (“I take you as my husband, and I give myself to you.”)
And together: “Pour nous aimer fidèlement dans le bonheur ou dans les épreuves, et nous soutenir l’un l’autre, tout au long de notre vie.” (“To love each other faithfully in happiness and trials, and to support each other all the days of our lives.”)