I closed my eyes and put myself in my friend’s hands. The ceremony was very quick, the sun was warm enough to see us through the hours we were going to spend with the guests and the Ribeiro wine; I remember glancing across to a corner of the garden and seeing Ismael on all fours, eating grass, before I slipped away to the bathroom to throw up the pints of coffee and alcohol that had left me almost hysterically elated. But the wine had done nothing to diminish the feeling of senselessness; what Ismael and I were doing was like picking at scabs, but there at the party, slightly drunk, it was like we were the scabs. Despite what I say now about the drink and the brief shiver of cold whenever I stood still, we had a good time: me in my cream, retro twenties dress and the simple hairstyle that Beatriz created; Ismael in his suit and bow tie. “Haven’t you told your parents?” I asked him. I knew he hadn’t, and I hadn’t said anything to mine either, just that we were going on vacation, but there were moments I regretted our lack of parental support. We’d probably end up hiding the photos of the sham celebration in the back of the closet, far from our children’s eyes. We’d take them out when the kids grew into sophisticated humans. The party went on well into the night; the next day, at lunchtime, we boarded our flight to Lanzarote in a lamentable state. I had no memory of what I’d packed and neither did Ismael. We were too tired to sleep. As the plane approached the island we glued our faces to the window, me sitting on Ismael’s lap, trying to recognize its black outline. The only color was the indigo of the ocean, which rose upward until it filled the air with a blue haze. We couldn’t see volcanoes or anything else until we began to descend and were offered a clear image of the coastline; it must have been very windy because there was a lot of turbulence. Then, for a few seconds, it seemed like we’d stopped, that the aircraft was hanging motionless with the unruffled calm of a bird. It was just an impression; the plane landed. Everything returned to coal black and rays of light on a barren surface.