The night before Aunt Lucia and my brother-in-law Arturo’s wedding, I couldn’t sleep.

The scent of incense burning in front of my sister Julia’s portrait mingled with the sweet perfume of the lilies that had just been placed on her altar. It was a smell that hurt and comforted at the same time, as if the air remembered its absence.
The wind was blowing in through the window, moving the black veil over the picture frame. It seemed that my sister was sighing from another world.

The house was unrecognizable. Where once the silence of mourning reigned, now hung red garlands, golden lights and a large blanket with bright letters: “Congratulations, Lucia and Arturo.”
In one corner, the teddy bear of Marianita—my sister’s daughter—still had an old bow tied to it.
Everything looked new, except for the pain.

My sister Julia had died in March.
He was traveling from San Cristóbal de las Casas when the truck fell due to a landslide.
The river dragged bodies, but they only found her wedding ring trapped between the stones.
They said it was fate.
The funeral was silent; Arturo cried until he lost his voice, and Aunt Lucia—my father’s younger sister—carried Marianita throughout the ceremony, handing out candy to the attendees to distract her.

I thought that over time the pain would become milder. But before even the forty-ninth day of mourning came… they were already handing out wedding invitations.

The neighbors whispered from the sidewalk:
“Well, each one their own life, but how fast, isn’t it?”
“And with the aunt of the deceased!”
The murmurs stuck like needles.
I feigned serenity, but inside it burned.
My mother only said, in a trembling voice,
“Last night I dreamed of your sister.

I didn’t know what to answer.

Aunt Lucía had always been a part of our household. She lived next door, separated only by a bougainvillea fence. She was like a second mother to us. She even helped Julia with her wedding dress when she married Arturo. No one imagined that, one day, that same woman would wear red to marry him.

When Arturo told me his decision, I thought I’d heard wrong.
“Marry… my aunt?”
He looked down. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were swollen from so many sleepless nights.
“Lucía says that way Marianita would have a mother. That it would be easier with school papers, the house…” he said, lamely.
“And my sister?” I asked.
“Julia… she’s gone now,” he murmured, and something in his voice cracked.

The wedding day arrived so quickly it seemed as if someone had pushed it.
Aunt Lucía was wearing a dark red dress, no headdress, no crown.
“I’m too old for that kind of thing,” she said, “but she looked in the mirror longer than necessary.
When she saw me behind her, she took my hand.
“My child, life doesn’t always go in a straight line. Sometimes you have to take a detour… to get back home.”

I didn’t know if she was saying it to me or to convince herself.

The ceremony took place in the courtyard. The smell of mole, the glow of the candles, the murmurs of the guests.
Marianita, wearing a white dress and patent leather shoes, ran between the tables.
When I picked her up, she smiled at me and murmured,
“Mom…” but quickly corrected herself, “I mean, aunt.”

And then, just as the master of ceremonies announced,
“Let the bride and groom enter!”
the door to the hall opened.

A thin woman, wearing a brown shawl and her hair tied back, entered slowly.
The noise ceased.
Each step she took sounded like a bell inside an empty temple.
Behind her, a man wearing a straw hat held her arm.

I jumped up.
It was  Julia .
My sister.
Alive.

The shawl fell and the air stopped.
She had a scar on her forehead and sunburned skin, but her eyes… they were the same eyes as always.
Marianita ran to her, shouting,
“Mom!”
And the whole room burst into tears and astonishment.

Arturo froze.
Aunt Lucía lowered her gaze and slowly fastened the last button on her blouse.
The woman in the rebozo—whom we later learned was called  Doña Trina —spoke firmly:
“Don’t be afraid. I found her.”
She said she lived in a fishing community on the coast of Oaxaca, helping with rescues during the rainy season.
One night, the river brought Julia, unconscious, tangled in a fisherman’s net.
She couldn’t remember her name.
For weeks they cared for her with fish broth and coconut milk until, one day, she regained her memory.
When she wanted to return, she asked Doña Trina to accompany her.

Julia approached Arturo.
“I thought about going back sooner,” she said, “but I needed to see if there was still something to go back to.”
She turned to Aunt Lucia.
“And I needed to know who had replaced me.”

Lucía took a deep breath and took a step forward.
“Julia… this wedding isn’t a wedding.”
She opened her purse and took out a sealed envelope.
“This was all a staged affair. I wanted to get the whole family together, and above all, I wanted Arturo to sign something.”
Lucía’s lawyer—a man in a black suit whom no one had noticed—held up a stack of papers.
“Temporary power of attorney granted by Mr. Arturo Ramírez to Mrs. Lucía Herrera, to legally represent the minor Mariana Ramírez in property and guardianship matters.”

The silence was absolute.
Lucía spoke slowly:
“Arturo owed a lot of money. He was planning to mortgage your father’s house, Julia. I just wanted to prevent it.
And I also wanted Marianita not to lose her home.”

Arturo was trembling.
Julia looked at him, without anger.
“You didn’t lose me in the river,” she whispered. “You lost me when you stopped looking for me.”

No one said another word.
Doña Trina, from the back, broke the silence:
“That’s it. The heavy stuff is on the table. Now it can be home again.”

Lucía opened another, older envelope.
It was Julia’s father’s will: the house was left to “my two daughters and their children.”
No husbands, no cross-inheritance.
My mother cried.
“Your father always knew more about life than we did.”

After that, the “wedding” fell apart.
They took down the lights and decorations, and instead of a party, there were hugs, apologies, and promises.
Julia returned to live in her house, opened a free school for the neighborhood children, and Aunt Lucía, little by little, returned to being the simple woman who cooked in silence while whistling.

Arturo got a job in a carpentry shop.
He no longer spoke of love or guilt, but he came home early and stayed for dinner with his daughter.
And that was enough.

One day, Aunt Lucía called me into the courtyard.
She was holding a folded piece of paper: a marriage certificate.
“Did you get married?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes,” she said, smiling, “but not to anyone from here. To someone who waited for me a long time, across the sea.”

I hugged her.
Finally, each of us had found our path.
Julia with her daughter, Arturo with his redemption, Lucía with her freedom.

That afternoon, I hung up the palm hat Doña Trina had sent us with a note engraved inside:
“To the house on the mainland. The sea wind has passed; let the wind from the fields blow now.”

I lit a candle in front of my father’s altar and murmured,
“We’re complete now, Dad.”

The flame reflected in the glass of Julia’s portrait.
For a moment, our faces blurred.
And I realized that, even though storms may still come, our house has already learned which way to tilt its roof.

And that, in Mexico or anywhere in the world,
means being safe.