The mess of the storm had passed. Joleen wore her new, blue glasses, and her fine, blond hair had been neatly trimmed into a cap that framed her elfin face perfectly. Her dress was blue rayon and it made her look like a princess. Giselle, too, had on blue rayon. Winona wore white, but it was not like any wedding dress the others had ever seen. It was an Ethiopian cotton shift, with bright-colored beadwork around the collar, and she’d bought it when she was twenty-two and new to the Peace Corps. For the day when she married. Next to her, Daniel wore jeans and a fine tunic woven in soft cotton for him by Mary Yazzie, the head of the weavers project. A sash belted his waist, and he’d left his hair loose and brushed to a gleaming shine. “For you,” he told Winona with a wink. The ceremony was simple, performed by a Congregationalist minister in the meadow at the center of the orchard. Winona felt near to bursting as they were pronounced man and wife, and barely heard the cheers of the others.
