FINALLY

Finally, the 10th anniversary had arrived. She felt confused. Her parents had warned her when she was 10 years old. When you are 20 years old, you will marry Gerard and you will go to live in your own home, which will be your husband’s house. You will have to leave school because you will have to go shopping, to cook and to care of the children you will have. In the coming months, preparations for the wedding will begin: they will invite relatives from Holland and England. Her father would speak with the priest in l’Espirall to fix a date, probably spring time, because then they would be able to adorn everything with broom from fields of Penedès. Her mother prepared a big meal for the guests. She had always had got on with Gerard. She knew him from 1st of ESO and they had shared basketball games and school trips. But so soon, she felt she still had everything to do! She would have finished a cicle formatiu de grau mitjà, she would have gone to live in Holland with her sister, who would have taught her English well, and there she could have studied to be a lawyer. But her parents and brothers said that this was not for her: she had to follow the tradition and to do as her mother did: taking care for the family. Her husband would be responsible for bringing money home, so that she could live quietly. But Andrew always came to her mind. Since they met at Summer Camp in El Raval, they had always sent one each other emails that were sincere and full of hope love letters, postcards that had inspired them, news clippings about cities they would visit together, school subjects materials.