Volví a levantar el micrófono.
“As several of you have traveled from Mexico City, Monterrey, Puebla and Querétaro to accompany us, you deserve the complete truth. This is not the first time that something like this has happened.
Patricia stepped forward.
—Basta ya.
“No,” I said. Not anymore.
And I went on.
I told how, since the engagement was announced, every decision had had to pass his mother’s filter. The dress “too simple”. The “too-refined” menu. The guest list “too crowded with unrelevant people.” I said I had suggested changing music because in my family “they wouldn’t know how to behave with an elegant repertoire.” I said that he wanted to remove the chiles in homemade nogada from the menu because they seemed “overly humble wedding”, although it was a recipe of my deceased grandmother and Diego knew perfectly well what it meant to me. I also said that, two weeks earlier, Patricia had told me at a private meal that a woman who married a man like her son had to learn “what a place to occupy.”
As I spoke, I didn’t look at people. I was looking at Diego.
Because the most painful thing was not Patricia. I never had never been. The unbearable thing was to remember all the times he had been present and had chosen silence. Every time he said, “Leave her, you know what she’s like.” Every time she asked for patience, understanding, prudence… always to me, never to her.
“I didn’t want to do this today,” I continued. The last thing I wanted was to break this day in front of everyone. But there is a difference between an imperfect wedding and a public humiliation. And I’m not getting married the day my parents are treated like they’re ashamed.
