Page 99 of Hushed

“The world was much harsher then, my son. I didn’t even notice how casually cruel it was until that day.”

“I’ve done okay taking care of myself, Papa.”

He nods. “You got your brains from your mother. Michel, he takes after me, but you were always the one asking questions, always building worlds in your head that I could never follow you into, because even when you were a child, you were so much smarter than I was. And now you’re grown and will marry.”

My throat tightens.

He pats my shoulders with his huge hands. “Do you know when I knew I wanted to marry your mother? It was the end of the first week. The only regret I have is not marrying her that day and not waiting for six months for her mother to come around to liking me.”

“Grand-mère Lucie never liked you.”

My father laughs and smooths an invisible crease over my shoulders. “No. She was so appalled that she could barely see straight. Her little girl was going to marry a simple soldier who fixed wiring for the Army. And now, you will marry a soldier.” He smiles for the first time.

“Do you like him, Papa?” I ask, and even though I’m trying to be manly about this, I can’t help it. The tears leak out. I feel like I’ve been wrung out and I haven’t even done the heavy lifting.

“The first day I met him, I thought, this is the man I prayed you would meet that day when Maman told me you were a homosexual. So no, I never liked any of your boyfriends before, no matter how long you kept them, because I never thought they had the spine to protect you if you ever needed it. But I like your…husband.” He says the word like it’s foreign, even though it’s the same word we’ve always used. Only now do I realize how strange it sounds. Sébastien Saint-Jacques et son mari. And his husband. It’s not that the gender is wrong—French is forgiving in some ways—it’s that it’s applying to me.

“I love him, Papa,” I say.

He nods. “Once you get started, you’ll find marriage suits you. It’s time, Bastien,” Papa says. He straightens my tie one last time. The organ is playing in the background. He pats me on the shoulder and then stops and formally kisses me on both cheeks—not the air-kisses that women give, but two solid kisses. “Come on, my son. Show these Anglos what we French are made of.”

I make myself smile as he opens the door. I go into the vestibule and stare resolutely at the closed doors.

“Missing someone?” Levi asks, and I sneak a glance.

“Oh, my God!” I say, because he’s in his full dress uniform, and holy shit, I was unprepared for it. There are bars over his right lapel that I want to ask about, and I do not know what a single one of them means. I have spent five years of my life interviewing men who wear those. His jacket is dark, midnight blue, and there are patches on the sleeve. I lean in to take him in. From his perfectly shined shoes up, he is gorgeous.

He gives me a look that says he knows exactly how devastating he looks, and takes my right hand in his left.

Someone opens the door. The organ swells and he pulls me gently.

The church is packed. I didn’t get a chance to see it before this moment, but it’s perfect. The walls are white, but the stained-glass windows show the life of Jesus. My mother has put lilies near the altar, and I’m absolutely certain she’s the one who ordered the decoration in blue and silver—Québec colors. There are pink rose petals scattered in front of us on the carpet. I glance to my left and see my family and friends, and not a few of my students. I catch Molly Baker’s eye, and Delphine’s, and I know for a fact that they have classes they should be teaching right now, one of which, for Molly, is mine. In the third row from the back there is a young woman I do not recognize with her phone up. I look to the right at the strangers who are watching Levi, and I panic that they won’t like me, that they’ll find me too old and too foreign. I want to go back and talk to my father again.

We stop at the altar, and the minister smiles down at us. He’s a young man, not that much older than Levi, one of those benign, kind men who go down to rough neighborhoods and minister to the poor. You can just see it in him. I listen to him say, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” and my mind blanks completely.

I have no job. I have no income. There is a tribunal that has not been scheduled and a board in Washington that has not reported. My visa dies the day my job officially confirms I’m fired. And today, I’m getting married.

It’s all wrong. I stand in front of the altar and try to listen to what the pastor is saying, but it’s just meaningless syllables. It’s too quiet. When Michel and Lisette got married, Uncle Raoul was listening to hockey on an earbud and would periodically offer updates, leading to a very impassioned whispered discussion about Montréal’s chance for the Stanley Cup this year until Maman shut us up. Two of my younger cousins wound up underneath the pews. Lisette’s sisters had a private crisis I was never privy to that carried throughout almost the entire ceremony, leaving my mother and Madame Fournier, Lisette’s mother, the sad job of trying to police a wedding that was a social occasion in its own right.

And here, everybody’s too quiet. Even my French side of the family has been cowed into sheepish silence by the polite, upright Anglos on Levi’s side of the aisle. Everybody has their eyes fixed on us.

And the ceremony’s not in French.

We count, we cry, and we pray in our own language.

I don’t want this. I don’t want to get married in front of strangers, in somebody else’s language. I want this minister replaced by someone who would call me mon gars if he saw me on the street. I want the smell of incense and caribou brandy, and someone tuning a fiddle. I want to go home.

Levi’s turning to face me. I’m not clear why, and I see him look at me. He smiles at me and takes both of my hands in his.

I look down at his hands. I don’t have the guts to look him in the eyes.

“Please repeat after me,” the minister says. “I, Levi Brayden Knight, take you, Sébastien Louis-Charles Saint-Jacques,” he starts, and pauses for Levi to repeat him.

“Moi, Levi Brayden Knight, je te prends, Sébastien Louis-Charles Saint-Jacques,” Levi says.

There is a gasp that travels up my side of the aisle. I look up at him in surprise. My heart lodges in my throat. My vision blurs.

“Pour être mon mari,” he continues in his clear voice, without waiting to be prompted. “Pour avoir et tenir de…” He pauses, and I see him struggling with the next words.