His face changed so fast it shocked me.
He put his fork down, leaned back, and gave a short, cold laugh.
“I’m never marrying you, Sarah.”
The room seemed to sharpen around me. Someone at another table laughed too loudly. A server passed with a tray of drinks.
I said, “You don’t have to say it like that.”
He shrugged. “Better than dragging this out again.”
“Marriage is a useless piece of paper.”
Again.
That word landed hard. As if I were tedious. As if I had been pestering him instead of asking a fair question after ten years of sharing a life.
“So that’s it?” I asked.
“Marriage is a useless piece of paper,” he said. “It changes absolutely nothing. If you need a legal contract to feel secure, that’s your problem, not mine.”
I looked at him, really looked at him, and I finally made a decision.
The contempt in his voice hurt more than the answer.
I thought I might cry. Instead, I looked at him, really looked at him, and I finally made a decision.
I nodded.
“Okay.”
Dinner ended. He talked about parking on the drive home.
When we got inside, I slipped off my shoes by the door. He loosened his tie and said, “Don’t spend all night working yourself up over this.”
I stood there in the dark for a moment.
I looked at him.
“I’m not.”
“Good,” he said, and went straight to bed.
I stood there in the dark for a moment.
Then I went into the kitchen, opened my laptop, and pulled up our shared accounts, the mortgage folder, the utilities, everything I would need if this was really the end. Somewhere between the savings account and the homeowners insurance, I remembered Christmas at his parents’ house.
I had smiled and assumed she was being old-fashioned.
Elaine had pulled me aside while everyone else was in the living room arguing over a board game. She touched my arm and said, kindly, “I hope that when you’re ready, you’ll give David the chance to make things official. He loves you very much.”
At the time, I had smiled and assumed she was being old-fashioned. Sitting alone at the kitchen table, I realized she had not been making an assumption. She had been repeating a story.
I called her.
She answered on the fourth ring, her voice thick with sleep.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Sarah? Is everything okay?”
“I need to ask you something,” I said. “And I need you to answer honestly.”
Silence.
Then, “All right.”
I told her what David had said at dinner. I repeated his words exactly. When I finished, she said nothing for so long that I thought the call had dropped.
