Chapter 2

The cancellation form arrived in my inbox before I stood up from the desk.

I signed it on the screen, hit send, and closed the laptop.

When I walked into the kitchen, Russell was grading an essay on the stool, his red pen tapping the paper.

"Bonnie from The Birch Room just sent the cancellation notice," I said.

Russell didn't look up. "For what? Did we change the wine order?"

"I canceled the venue, Russell."

The red pen stopped.

He looked at me over his paper. "Okay," he said, keeping his voice calm, the way he did when Willa missed curfew. "I know you're angry about the studio. We can talk about it after I finish these essays."

"The date is gone."

He looked at me properly then.

"Maren, stop," he said, setting the pen down. "Invitations went out to two hundred people. My parents booked flights from Boise. Willa spent an entire weekend hand-writing place cards. You're talking about blowing up our wedding over twenty minutes of bad timing."

"It wasn't just twenty minutes."

"She's an old college friend who took a picture of me," he said, his voice rising, sharp with frustration. "I didn't sleep with her. I didn't kiss her. I stood by a window. And you're ready to throw away seven years over hurt feelings?"

Seven years.

He put the words between us like a shield, sure I wouldn't push past them.

He wasn't a monster.

That was the terrible part.

When my father had a stroke three years earlier, Russell drove me to Rochester every Friday after school.

He slept in a vinyl chair beside the hospital window and learned which vending machine still had coffee after midnight.

On the mornings I could not make myself call the neurologist, he made the call.

When I forgot to eat, he pushed half his sandwich across the cafeteria table without turning it into a speech.

That man had been real.

So was the man standing in our kitchen now, asking me to ignore a lie because he had not kissed anyone.

I hated that both versions belonged to him.

Leaving did not erase the hospital chair, the late-night coffee, or the years he had shown up.

It only meant those memories could no longer purchase another chance on demand.

When Willa called crying from the middle school nurse's office two years ago, scared and bleeding through her jeans, she had called me before she called Russell.

We had built a real family.

That was why this cut so deep.

The wedding was supposed to put a legal name around the life we already lived.

Willa had asked whether she could call me her stepmom the day after the ceremony.

I had told her she could call me whatever felt right.

I had met Russell at thirty-two, when Willa was nine.

At thirty-nine, I was not walking away from a boyfriend.

I was taking apart the only family the three of us had known for most of her childhood.

Now Russell was using her place cards and his parents' flights as reasons I should stand still while he decided how much humiliation counted.

"You didn't look like an old friend," I said. "Why did you look more alive with her in five minutes than you have with me in three years?"

Russell stared at me.

He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

He looked down at the island, unable to hold my gaze.

"You're blowing this out of proportion," he muttered, crossing his arms. "I was trying to help a friend get some work. You're panicking before the wedding, and you're taking it out on me."

He reached for my hand, but I stepped back.

I looked down at my left hand.

The small diamond band was cold against my skin.

I twisted it over my knuckle, pulled it off, and set it on the counter right next to Willa's allergy pills.

He stared at the ring.

His voice changed.

"Maren... don't."

"You already made the choice, Russell. You just expected me to keep paying for it."

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you," he said.

I looked at him.

"Are you sorry you embarrassed me, or sorry I finally did something about it?"

His face changed.

"I didn't think you'd cancel everything."

"That's the problem," I said. "You never think I will."

He stared at the ring beside Willa's medication.

"I'll call Bonnie in the morning."

"The form is already signed."

For the first time that night, he looked afraid.

I walked down the hall and went back into the spare bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me.

I sat at the desk and pulled out my phone.

I opened the account we used for wedding bills.

Both of our paychecks fed into it every two weeks to cover vendor payments.

The balance was much lower than it should have been.

I scrolled down once.

NORTH STAR CAMERA — $8,240.00

Audra made her living with a camera.

The charge was from seventeen days ago.

Before Drew got sick.

Before Audra walked into that studio and Russell said, What are the odds?