Chương 3
Nobody asked about the missing first dance.
That courtesy required more effort than asking would have.
At ten thirty, Natalie went upstairs to the bridal suite. Maya followed. Peter stayed downstairs long enough to say good night to relatives and collect the box containing Natalie’s flat shoes.
The suite looked as though another bride had left in a hurry. Makeup brushes lay across the vanity. Tissue paper covered the carpet. A plate held two strawberries and the dried edge of a sandwich. Natalie stood in front of the mirror while Maya worked the pins from her veil.
Her hair loosened in dark waves around her face.
“Your earrings,” Maya said.
Natalie removed the pearl drops and placed them in their box. Julian had given them to her that morning with a note: For every room we enter together.
She stared at the handwriting inside the lid.
Maya read it over her shoulder and swore.
“Don’t,” Natalie said.
“I didn’t write it.”
“Just don’t make everything easier to hate.”
Maya’s hands went still.
Natalie closed the box.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re allowed to be mean to me until Tuesday.”
“Why Tuesday?”
“You have a dentist appointment Wednesday. You’ll need your energy.”
Natalie sat on the edge of the bed. Her dress spread around her in heavy white folds. A hook pressed into her ribs. She had been aware of it since the ceremony but had refused to complain because the gown was beautiful and expensive and she had chosen it.
Maya knelt to unfasten the row of covered buttons.
A knock sounded.
Julian’s voice came through the door.
“Natalie.”
Maya looked at her.
“Let him in.”
Maya opened the door but did not leave.
Julian had removed his jacket. His bow tie hung loose around his neck. He had spent enough time among the guests to collect marks of the evening: a spot of wine on one cuff, a crushed petal on his shoe, a faint line across his forehead where he had pressed his fingers.
“I booked another room,” he said.
Natalie waited.
“I thought you should have this one.”
“Okay.”
He looked at Maya.
“She’s staying,” Natalie said.
Maya folded her arms.
Julian nodded. “Can we talk tomorrow morning?”
“We can talk now.”
“I don’t think either of us is—”
“Do not tell me I’m too emotional to understand what happened.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were going to say we’re tired.”
“We are tired.”
“So say what you mean.”
He looked at the open suitcase on the luggage stand. Her clothes for the honeymoon were packed inside. Linen dresses. Sandals. A blue swimsuit Julian had insisted made her look fearless.
“My mother asked for a picture,” he said. “She said it mattered to her.”
“You knew it would hurt me.”
“I thought you might never see it.”
The room changed around that sentence.
Maya lowered her arms.
Natalie felt the hook in her dress again, digging beneath her right shoulder blade.
“You thought I might never see it.”
Julian rubbed his thumb against the edge of his wedding band.
“It was supposed to be private.”
“So the plan wasn’t that it wouldn’t happen. The plan was that I wouldn’t know.”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“But you agreed.”
“I didn’t think through what it meant.”
“You didn’t have to think. We talked about this.”
“I know.”
“Last Christmas, when she made us take two versions of the family card.”
“I know.”
“One with me and one without me.”
“She never used the one without you.”
“Because you told her not to.”
“Yes.”
“And you promised me that I would never have to stand there again while your family decided whether I counted.”
Julian’s face tightened. “I remember.”
“You said it in the counselor’s office.”
“I remember.”
“You said you were done asking me to be patient while you negotiated with your mother.”
“I am done.”
Natalie gestured toward the courtyard below them.
“You were not done three hours ago.”
He opened his mouth and closed it.
Maya walked to the window. She pulled the curtain aside less than an inch, looked down, and let it fall.
Julian sat in the chair near the door rather than beside Natalie.
“When she asked,” he said, “I told myself it was different because it was our wedding. I thought she needed a moment with us before things changed.”
“Us.”
“My parents. My siblings.”
“Your family.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It is what you did.”
His fingers tightened around his ring.
“I’m sorry.”
Natalie watched him. She had imagined his apologies before. She had pictured them after forgotten errands, impatient words, minor cruelties that arrived in ordinary marriages. She had imagined herself softening because she loved him and because love, in her private understanding, included allowing someone to return after they had failed.
She had never imagined an apology that asked her to accept the same wound they had already named.
“What happens next time?” she asked.
“There won’t be a next time.”
“That is what you said last time.”
He breathed through his nose.
“What do you want me to do tonight?”
The question sounded practical. It was one of his strengths. Give Julian a list and he would complete it before breakfast.
Natalie removed her wedding ring.
The pale strip beneath it looked indecently bare.
Julian did not move.
She set the ring on the vanity beside the pearl earrings.
“I want you to stop asking me to design the correct response to what you did.”
His eyes remained on the ring.
“Are you ending the marriage?”
“I don’t know.”
“We got married today.”
“I know what day it is.”
“Natalie, please.”
The word almost broke his voice. Almost.
She stood, gathering the front of her gown so it would not catch beneath her feet.
“I’m not going on the honeymoon.”
“I understand.”
May you like
“No, you don’t. I’m not punishing you. I can’t spend ten days pretending this is a misunderstanding we can talk through between breakfast and the beach.”
“I wasn’t asking you to pretend.”
