Never before had the young woman been allowed to see the family she'd left behind. All she wanted was to let them know she was safe and being well cared for. Today was going to be her first contact. She walked down the aisle of the near empty church...
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It had been a beautiful wedding ceremony. There were hundreds of guests and the atmosphere was joyous. Karuna, now 18 years old, looked beautiful in her red silk sari. Her husband was very handsome in his white silk dhoti.
Sarah had sat alongside Wendy during the wedding ceremony. Afterwards, when Wendy had asked Sarah to take her to see her own family, her mum and dad and Philip, Sarah had said no, not yet, that Milene should be with her. Perhaps next year. Wendy had grown concerned at this.
"Is there something the matter?" Wendy had asked. "Is everything all right with them?"
"They're absolutely fine," said Sarah. "Milene thinks you're not ready yet, that's all. I'm sorry." Sarah had been insistent.
After the ceremony, Sarah had taken Wendy by the hand, and led her to where the wedding reception was to be held.
"Now, I'm going to leave you here for a while. I don't want you to move from this room until I return, OK?"
Wendy had nodded, a smile masking her sadness at being denied from seeing her family.
And so it was that Wendy now found herself sitting on an empty chair near the dance floor, listening to beautiful Indian music and watching her best friend from childhood dance gracefully with her new husband in their first dance together as man and wife.
A new song began. Wendy watched as an older Indian man, in his fifties perhaps, walked onto the dance floor, limping slightly. He tapped Karuna's husband on the shoulder, who nodded respectfully, and passed Karuna to him. Wendy recognised the older man now, it was Karuna's father. Wendy remembered being told by Milene that he carried a limp as a legacy of his battle with that dog. His face was slightly wrinkled and his hair greying, but he was unmistakeable to her. Wendy watched as Karuna and her father danced slowly around. Not as animated as Karuna had danced with her husband of course, even rather clumsily due to her father's limp, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Her friend, dancing with her own loving father, on the day of her wedding. It was so moving to Wendy. She remembered back to a time when, as a little girl, she and her father had danced in their kitchen just like this. She missed him so much. She missed them all, her mother, her older brother Philip. But her father, she had felt so close to him particularly.
She wanted to see him, now.
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