K.Esquivel-LWFC

scheduled for midday. He looked at his
smoking jacket, draped over a
chair. Everything he would wear was
meticulously arranged, waiting for
the moment to dress. The shoes shone their
brightest; the bow tie,
sash, and shirt were impeccable. Satisfied
that everything was in
order, he took a deep breath, lay down and,
as soon as his head touched
the pillow, was sound asleep.
Pedro, on the other hand, could not get to
sleep. A terrible jealousy
gnawed at his entrails. He didn't care at all
for the idea of going to
the wedding and having to endure seeing
Tita together with John.
He couldn't understand John's attitude at all;
he acted like he had
mush in his veins. John knew perfectly well
what was between Tita and
him. Yet he acted as if it were nothing. That
afternoon, when Tita
was trying to light the oven, she couldn't find
any matches anywhere.
John, always gallant, had quickly offered to
help her. But that wasn't
all! After lighting the fire, he had presented
Tita with the box of
matches, taking her hands in his.
What business did he have giving Tita that
kind of ridiculous gift? It
was just a pretext for John to stroke Tita's
hands in front of Pedro.
John thought he was so civilized -he'd teach
him what a man does when
he really loves a woman. Grabbing his
jacket, he got ready to go look
for John so he could smash his face in.
He stopped at the door. He couldn't
contribute to any vicious talk
about how to's brother-in-law had gotten in a
fight with John the day
before the wedding.
Tita would never forgive him. Angrily, he
threw his jacket on the bed
and went looking for a pill for his headache.
The noise Tita made in
the kitchen was magnified a thousand times
by the pain.
Tita was thinking of her sister as she finished
shelling the last few
nuts left on the table. Rosaura would have
enjoyed this wedding so
much. The poor thing had been dead for a
year. They had waited all
this time to hold the religious ceremony in
honor of her memory.
Her death had been extremely odd. She had
eaten supper as usual and
immediately afterward had gone to her room.
Esperanza and Tita had sat
talking for a while in the dining room. Pedro
had gone upstairs to say
good night to Rosaura before going to sleep.
Tita and Esperanza
couldn't hear a thing, the dining room was so
far from the bedrooms.
At first Pedro didn't find it odd that he could
hear Rosaura breaking
wind even with the door closed. He began to
notice the unpleasant
noises when one lasted so long it seemed it
would never end.
Pedro tried to concentrate on the book he
was holding, thinking that
drawn-out sound could not possibly be the
product of his wife's
digestive problems. The floor was shaking,
the light blinked off and
on. Pedro thought for a moment it was the
rumble of cannons signaling