It looks more like a funeral than a wedding. Simone (wearing the corsage) is the first of us seven Lafortune daughters to get married. She and her groom, Philippe, could have held out for a white dress, but they had waited long enough. As Catholics, we are forbidden to marry when death looms over the family. And once our loved ones pass, we must wear black from head to toe for an entire year. So a wedding, cloaked in black. So much black, and yet so many happy faces. How do we arrive at such a contradictory place?
All my sisters are here—Simone, Yvette, Gisèle, Pauline, Monique and little Juliette. That’s me, Huguette Lafortune, in the front row, all the way to the right, just two weeks shy of my 11th birthday. Maman stands over my shoulder, grinning as if showing off new teeth. Despite everything, I will never see her cry nor smile so broadly again.
In the years leading up to Simone’s wedding, two wars will rage—one an enemy appearing boldly, the other slinking into our lives in secret. Both malignant. Both killers. One devouring countries, the other human organs.
We will lose the war closest to home which will ravage our little girl lives and steal so much of what we treasure and hold dear. How then can this story be titled Good Fortune Daughters? We are the Lafortunes: this is true. And our lives will be sustained by our Catholic faith, shielded from a tragic family secret and further protected by an impossible promise. Through it all, a mysterious butterfly leaves an invisible trail of strength and compassion for us to follow.
Finally, there is a way for loss to be transformed into something good if only we can discover how. But first, we have to make it through.
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