But over seven generations of sheepherding had invariably gotten into Casey’s blood, so that even though nobody would ever admit it, and it was hard to actually prove—since Casey was such a soft-spoken man to begin with—Fe was certain that her fiancé had somehow acquired the odd affliction of bleating.

It was like this: Sometimes he’d be working in his office at night and if she was around (not to imply that she stayed over before the wedding or nothing) and thought that maybe he’d like a cup of oshá, knowing how much he suffered from indigestion, just outside his door she’d hear a soft but distinct ba-aaa sound. Maybe it’s his heartburn, she’d say to herself, or maybe he’s just tired, as if bleating were the natural sound men made when yawning, or burping for that matter.

But eventually, she began to notice him doing this on the street, in actual broad daylight, in public, although not quite in front of her, since he was always maybe two or three feet ahead of her whenever it would happen, in the Broadway picking out new underwear, let’s say, when out of modesty, Fe was intentionally staying behind a bit. She was sure she heard a bleat. She’d look around quickly to see if anyone else had heard it, too. But as it happened, nobody else was ever near enough to hear it, if, in fact, that’s what it was.

After a few months, there was no doubt that her fiancé had this inbred peculiarity that couldn’t be helped, as I said, after three hundred years of sheepherding and a long line of ancestors spending lifetimes of long, cold winters tending their herds.

She was so embarrassed, however, that she could not even speak to her mom about it. Instead, she announced to her family and friends (without even consulting with el Casey, whose psyche she already knew was also affected by the many generations of males in isolation so he would not object to a private affair) that theirs was to be as simple and as intimate a wedding as they could possibly arrange. And she was right, of course.

After Fe’s Big Day, which consisted of little more than the Mass and a chile enchilada and posole dinner in the church hall for the immediate members of the groom’s family (none of whom she was worried about with regards to Casey’s “problem” because by then she figured that it was, if not a genetic, a family idiosyncrasy) and those of the bride who more or less attended. Her parents were present. Loca watched the ceremony from outside the church, peering in through the open door. Caridad was not physically present but “channeled” in her aura. And Esperanza was seen there by some, but not by everybody.