Bella, at eleven!

Bella received the invitation two months in advance of the wedding. She knew that invitation would come, and with it a sense of anguish gripped her chest. She began by feeling a tingling sensation on the left side of her sternum, a warmth spreading from there, passing over her heart and trickling down, showering her stomach with a rare warmth.

She looked closely at the elegant card, moving it between her hands, going over every detail. She stopped at the light color and the texture of the cardboard, tried to assign significance to the modern and casual style of the letters, paid attention to the coin that fixed, like a royal seal, a very delicate bouquet of tiny flowers. Finally she noticed the way the names of the bride and groom were whimsically joined, the name of her only cousin with that of her betrothed.

Bella sighed. Then she put the card in the envelope. Closing it, she noticed her own name and the accompanying legend, which indicated that the invitation was valid for only one person. She would be going alone to the wedding. It was only recently that Bella had signed her divorce decree. She felt she had moved past the separation process after long years of struggling to save the relationship. She had been peaceful...until now.

Through her mind went the eventuality of excusing herself, of inventing a pretext, but the image of her beloved cousin, of her maternal family, dismissed that possibility. She would go to the wedding and do her best to enjoy and share a great joy. Devised a plan.

She would carefully choose the details of her personal presentation that day. She would choose a beautiful dress, she would wear the most luxurious shoes, she would wear an elegant hairstyle, she would have the perfect make-up. Nothing would give away the feeling of loneliness, hopelessness and the burden of envy (she was sure of it) that came with the certainty that the union she would be attending would be a lifelong union.

The wedding day dawned in splendor. Both the ceremony and reception were to be held outdoors. A sense of romance prevailed everywhere. Flowers, crystals, gauze floating in the gentle breeze, gave the place a touch of relaxed freedom. Bella had decided to arrive an hour late to the convocation, just at the time the ceremony was supposed to begin. She wanted to avoid the conversations and questions from the relatives.

While her cousin walked out of the residence, dressed in her wedding dress, Bella walked from the opposite side to the place she had reserved. She looked stunning. It was eleven o'clock in the morning. She attracted all eyes. Only the soft rustle of new cloths brushing against the chairs was heard in the movement of bodies to watch her. All the rest was silence.

No one imagined the storm raging in Bella's heart. She just stared at her cousin's back as she fought the intense emotion that bubbled up from her stomach, up through her heart, through her sternum, up her throat, and up in tears into her eyes.

Bella hadn't considered bringing a handkerchief. She resigned herself to letting the tears flow. "Sometimes it's good to cry," she thought. "Lots of people cry at weddings," she justified to herself. Then she began to hear a rustling of leaves. She looked up and watched as the gentle breeze that floated the gauze had turned into a stiff wind. She looked up at the sky. She was surprised by the closeness of the black clouds and began to feel on her cheeks, already wet from crying, the coolness of the raindrops.

The ladies protected their hairstyles with their small purses, the husbands took off their jackets to protect their children or their wives. No one dared to get up from their chairs while in the simple atrium of the ceremony the officiant gave speed to the act, without aborting the sacred ritual.

Bella forgot herself, she began to wonder what her cousin was feeling. It was then that the bride turned to her. What Bella saw was the most splendid smile she had ever witnessed. Her cousin was full of happiness, with her groom's hand in hers and a gleam of placidity in her eyes that Bella had never seen in anyone.

Bella cried again, unconcerned with tears that were mistaken for rain. So she cried while she heard the usual phrase with which unions are finalized. A very short applause from the audience sealed the ceremony. There was a rush. Everyone ran to help protect the tables from the festivities. Bella ran too.

It was a to-ing and fro-ing of people hurriedly carrying the dishes, the baskets of bread, the trays of cheese... all amidst shouts of command from Bella's aunt and mother, which the family, men, women and children obeyed without delay.

In the frenzy, Bella forgot the price of her shoes, lost a heel between the root of a tree. Her elegant dress was stained with chocolate, her elegant hairstyle crumbled over her shoulders and her careful make-up, which hid the expression of her heart, was ruined.

Thus, ugly, wet, with only one shoe, her cousin found her, in front of a mirror, laughing at herself.

Then it was all joy, toasts, laughter, anecdotes. Everyone remarked that in the first photographs of the wedding, before the downpour, Bella was not in the picture. And she did look beautiful when she arrived at eleven o'clock in the morning! For her impeccable appearance she earned a toast that was proposed by the best man of the wedding:

"To Bella, the most elegant woman at eleven o'clock in the morning and to the happiest girl at the end of the party." Said the best man in a deep voice.

Bella raised her glass with a smile that came out of her entrails, caught in the best man's gaze.