“I couldn’t see his face at first.”
My friend shook her head.
“Let me tell you what he was saying first. Please. I need you to hear this.”
I sat down on the vanity bench because my knees didn’t feel like mine anymore.
“Okay.”
“Andrew was talking about your dad’s insurance settlement,” she said carefully, the way people speak around something breakable. “And the house. The one your name is on.”
“He knows about those. I told him,” I countered.
“I need you to hear this.”
“Andrew said he only needed to hold steady for a year. Then he could restructure everything jointly. Those were his words. ‘Restructure’.”
The word landed like a stone dropped into still water. I felt the ripples reach my ribs.
“That could mean anything, Marcy.”
“He laughed.” Her voice broke on the word. “He laughed and said you were lonely enough not to look too closely.”
I don’t remember making the sound that came out of me. I remember the taste of it. Salt and something metallic, as if I’d bitten my own tongue.
“Those were his words.”
“Say that again?” I muttered.
“I won’t. I’m not going to say it twice. Once was hard enough, and I know you heard me,” Marcy responded.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Half laced. Dress hanging open at the back, after Emma had run out to check the flowers before finishing the ties. My mascara was already gone.
“Twenty years,” I whispered. “I slept with a chair under the doorknob for two of them, Marcy. You know that.”
“I know.”
“He takes such good care of me.”
“I know.”
“So why would he say such a thing?”
“He takes such good care of me.”
Marcy crossed the room and knelt in front of the bench. She took the bouquet out of my lap and set it aside.
“Because some men learn what a woman needs and hand it to her one spoon at a time until she’s full enough not to notice the price tag.”
I stared at her. Close to three decades of Marcy being right about the things I didn’t want her to be right about.
“You didn’t have to tell me today.”
“Yes, I did. If I let you sign your name next to his, I’d never forgive myself.”
I didn’t want her to be right.
Downstairs, the string quartet had started tuning. I could hear Emma’s voice, warm and hostess-bright, telling someone the ceremony was running a few minutes late. Her voice sounded close.
I looked back at my reflection in the half-laced dress.
“I need to hear it from him,” I said. “Before I decide anything, I need to hear it from Andrew himself.”
Just then, there was a knock. My best friend answered, and it was my daughter.
Her voice sounded close.
“Mom, what’s the delay?” My daughter asked, looking confused.
I pulled Emma aside, the half-laced dress trailing behind me as if unfinished.
“I need 10 minutes,” I whispered. “Please stall them. Say I broke a strap. Anything.”
She searched my face, then nodded without a single question. That alone told me she already suspected something.
Next, I found one of the servers in the hallway and sent him with a folded note, asking Andrew to meet me in the small library off the suite.
“Mom, what’s the delay?”
My fiancé arrived within two minutes, worry pulling at the corners of his eyes.
He kissed my forehead the way he always did, slowly and carefully.
“You’re pale,” Andrew said. “Are you all right, love?”
“Who were you with last night in the parking lot?”
He blinked once, then smiled. “My cousin, Robert, stopped by. Why? Did someone see us and get worried?”
“You don’t have a cousin named Robert who was invited.”
“Are you all right, love?”
“He’s a distant cousin. From my mother’s side.” Andrew rubbed the back of his neck. “What’s going on?”
I sat down on the arm of the leather chair, keeping my voice level.
“Tell me about the settlement.”
The color drained from his face in a way that no explanation could paint back on.
“What settlement?”
“My father’s. And the house that’s in my name. And you used the word ‘restructure.'”
My fiancé recovered quickly. Too quickly.
“He’s a distant cousin.”
“Sweetheart, who told you that? Was it Marcy?” His voice softened into something almost pitying. “She’s been acting strangely for weeks. You’ve noticed it too.”
I didn’t answer. I let him keep talking because people like Andrew always kept talking.
“She’s been alone for a decade,” he went on. “Ten years without anyone. And now you’re finally happy, and suddenly she has doubts about me? Think about it.”
For a moment, I did think about it. Marcy had been quieter lately.
“She’s been acting strangely.”
The story he was building had just enough shape to hold water. My throat tightened, and I almost, almost apologized to him.
