The Church of Santa Ana is where Daniel Sempere and Bea Aguilar marry, turning a difficult journey through injury, family opposition, and uncertainty into a public commitment. The ceremony nearly fails when the parish priest objects to Bea’s pregnancy, but Fermín Romero de Torres takes charge and secures another officiant, making the church the setting for a resolution achieved through determined intervention rather than uncomplicated approval.

Setting and Significance

The church appears at the close of Daniel and Bea’s story as the site of their marriage, three months after Bea’s disappearance and Daniel’s near-fatal gunshot wound. The ceremony takes place on a March morning. Daniel remembers little of the priest’s words or the hopeful faces filling the church; what remains most clearly is the touch of Bea’s lips and a private oath he carries with him thereafter.

That intimate memory gives the church a significance beyond its role as a wedding venue. After a period marked by danger and separation, the ceremony places Daniel and Bea’s relationship before family and guests and gives their future a shared, public form. The scene’s emphasis on what Daniel remembers—and what he barely recalls—makes the vow more enduring in his account than the formal proceedings around it.

A Wedding Nearly Prevented

The wedding preparations are overseen by Fermín, who assumes control of the ceremony and banquet while Daniel is still recovering. When the parish priest learns that Bea is pregnant, he refuses to perform the marriage and threatens to call on the Inquisition to stop the event. Fermín responds furiously, confronts him, and removes him from the church, denouncing his refusal and warning that he will make a scandal in the bishopric.

The confrontation briefly leaves the wedding without a priest. Fermín then goes to San Gabriel’s School and recruits Father Fernando Ramos, whose specialties are Latin, trigonometry, and gymnastics and who has never performed a wedding. The change of officiant allows the ceremony to proceed despite the first priest’s opposition. The obstacle is practical as well as symbolic: Bea’s pregnancy is treated as grounds to deny the couple the ceremony, while Fermín’s intervention insists that the wedding will not be abandoned on that account.

Family and the Ceremony

Bea’s father remains distant from Daniel, continuing to speak to him in monosyllables, but he has accepted the marriage in the circumstances. Bea’s disappearance has softened his anger, and he is left facing the prospect that his grandson will soon call Daniel father. A week before the wedding, he visits the bookshop, gives Daniel a gold tiepin that belonged to his own father, and shakes his hand. His gesture marks a guarded change: he does not become openly warm, but he entrusts Daniel with a family object and asks him to take care of Bea.

At the church, Bea wears an ivory-white dress. Daniel’s recollection is narrowed to her, the touch of her lips, and the oath he remembers for the rest of his life. The ceremony’s successful completion thus gathers several changes into one place: Bea and Daniel marry, her father offers a restrained gesture of acceptance, and Fermín’s persistence carries the wedding past the refusal that threatened to cancel it.