“Exactly.”
I leaned against a pillar. From inside, the murmur of the broken party still drifted out.
“How did you know?” I asked.
My mom clutched her purse. “I heard her. At the menu tasting.”
I remembered that day. A private room, white tablecloths, Diane complaining that the sauce would stain her teeth. I had gone to the bathroom. My mom stayed behind.
“She thought I had left, too,” my mom said. “She was on the phone with a friend. She said you were a blessing because Mark would finally ‘get into Tribeca without paying rent.’ She said you’d start by living together, then she’d move in ‘for health reasons,’ and eventually, they’d convince you to sell to buy something bigger ‘under the family name.’”
The air left my lungs. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Mark didn’t…” My voice broke.
My mom took my face in her hands, like when I was a child and scraped my knee. “Honey, he was sitting right next to her when she said it afterward in the parking lot. He didn’t contradict her. He only said, ‘First, we have to get married.’”
First, we have to get married.
Not first, we have to build. Not first, we have to talk to Sophie. First, we get married. Like I was just a legal key.
The car arrived. My dad drove. I sat in the back with my mom, still in my wedding dress, shoes in my hand, makeup running down my face. As we drove over the bridge, the city lights below looked vast and indifferent. I thought of my Tribeca condo, the morning walks to get coffee, the quiet of the hardwood floors—a place that was mine. And tonight, I’d discovered I almost gave it away for “love.”
