The days before the wedding were a great strain, and Min always said she never understood how they got themselves out of the house the morning of the wedding. If it had not been that Markey was standing outside with the horse and car they had hired, they might all have stayed in the house and let Martin find his way out to Oylegate as best he could. He might have changed his mind then, and remained at home where he belonged. Driving out of the town of Wexford, they crossed the bridge at Ferrycarrig, and there was the Slaney pouring away under them, flowing straight for the harbor as unconcernedly as though it were any old day. And then the long drive out to Oylegate. And when they got to Oylegate the chapel yard was waiting for them, looking more like an arena than a religious place. And the chapel itself, all solemn and hedged in with flowers so full in bloom that they seemed to be overflowing their petals, color flowing freely through the air. Min drew deep breaths, filling her lungs with fright. The fright built up inside her chest — she could feel it beginning to smother her. There was no air in the place. She said to her mother later, “I nearly got a headache in the chapel. I thought I might have to walk outside. It was too close in there. I began to feel weak. I thought we’d never get away out of the place.” Polly was listening. Polly always seemed to be listening in time to turn your own words against you.

Polly said, “You always tell everybody you never had a headache in your life. You always say you never had time to have a headache. You leave the headaches to the rest of us. Clare and Polly have time for all that kind of nonsense, imagining themselves to be delicate — that’s what you always say. And then in the next breath, every time anything goes against you, you tell us you almost got a headache. If you almost got a headache it would show on your face. You’re overcome by your own bad humor — that’s all that’s the matter with you.”

“In the name of God,” their mother said, “this is not the time for the two of you to start fighting. Do you want to make a show of us all, have them all laughing at us more than they’re laughing already?”