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“No.”

“I’d like everyone there to be someone we’d miss if they weren’t.”

Charlotte’s expression softened. “That’s a lovely way of deciding a guest list.”

“I think so too.”

“And the ceremony?”

I considered the question. “I’d like it to feel…” I searched for the right word before smiling. “Like home.”

Charlotte smiled. “I think the two of you will manage that.”

I reached across the little table and took her hand. “Will you be my maid of honor? I can’t imagine standing there without you.”

She stared at me for just a second before her eyes filled. “Emilia, of course I will. To be honest, I was already making lists.”

* * *

She teased me for twenty minutes after that, because she had to, because the alternative was that both of us would have cried in a room with excellent acoustics. She wanted to know whether he was tidy (unbearably), whether he snored (no, which I found suspicious), whether he had opinions about towels (he does), and whether he had ever, at any point, in any circumstance, done anything at all that was not graceful.

“He burnt the bread.”

“When?”

“Last week. He was talking to me and he forgot it. It came out of the oven black, and he looked at it before saying, ‘This is not the loaf I intended’”

Charlotte laughed until she had to put her cup down. “What happened then?”

“We looked at each other for about five seconds…” I laughed at the memory. “And then we both started laughing.”

“Please tell me he made another loaf.”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“We each insisted on trying a piece first.”

Charlotte laughed even harder. “How was it?”

“Terrible.”

“Naturally.”

“But it seemed unfair to waste perfectly good laughter.”

Charlotte looked at me with genuine joy. “You’re very happy.”

“I’ve been in love before,” I said. “Or I thought I was, and I was certainly something. I organized eleven years of my life around it. What I remember most is how much work it was to remain inside it.”

Charlotte said nothing.

“It’s quiet with him. That’s all. It’s just quiet. I don’t perform. I don’t calculate. I don’t audit myself afterwards. He asks me what I think and then he waits, he actually waits. Whatever I say next is simply allowed to be true.” I looked down at the ring, at the uneven old light in it. “I have spent my entire adult life being the person who takes care of things. Last night, I stood in an opera house and let a man tell me he pays attention to me. I did not feel managed, Charlotte. I felt…”

I stopped because I couldn’t immediately find the words.

“Seen,” Charlotte offered.