“Dante isn’t the power in that family,” I say.
“No.”
“Then this isn’t a marriage to him.”
“It’s a marriageintothem.”
“And if he’s cruel?”
My father hesitates. “He won’t be allowed to be.”
“He doesn’t seem like someone who asks permission,” I point out.
My father doesn’t answer.
I stand, because sitting suddenly feels like agreement. I move to the window. The fields stretch dark and wet beyond the estate walls. The road curves out toward somewhere else. Somewhere not here.
I could leave. Properly. Quietly. With planning. I have contingencies. My father made sure of that, even if he never asked what I did with the lessons.
Behind me, he says, softer, “Evie.”
I turn. He’s holding a pen.
“I’m asking,” he says.
That does it. There are worse things than being ordered. Being asked is one of them.
The question slips out. “If Mam were alive?”
He stills for a moment. “She wouldn’t agree,” he says.
I believe him. “And you’re doing it, anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Because it’s necessary.”
“Yes.”
I sit and take the pen. It’s warm from his hand. I should read every clause, I know that. I was raised better than blind signatures. But the decision isn’t in the paper.
It’s here.
In the way he won’t quite look at me. In the fact that he’s asking.
I sign.
Siobhan Brennan.
That’s that, then.
My father takes the contract. His thumb rests beside my name for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
I swallow down something that might be anger. “Don’t be. Be right.”
The door opens without him calling for it. Of course it does. Timing is everything in this house.
“Dante’s here,” my father says.
