After that, he kept doing it.
When Peter asked whether Harold had shown me any paperwork about the Millbrook lot, Harold later said, "Already?"
When Elise offered to help me review my beneficiary forms before the wedding, Harold smiled sadly and said, "If that makes you feel safer, of course."
All three of my children RSVP’d no.
Then, after a pause:
"I just don’t think thirty days will be enough for them."
That line did it.
I kept the date.
All three of my children RSVP’d no.
It should've bothered me that I was about to marry a man without ever seeing his supposed home.
Still, on the morning of the ceremony, I set out two empty chairs in the front row of Harold’s rented rose garden. The bungalow was lovely in photographs. White lattice. Rose bushes. A flowered arch over the lawn.
It should have bothered me that I was about to marry a man without ever seeing the home he claimed would someday be his real one.
