The Boutique Owner Told Me to Stay Quiet Before I Heard Something I Was Not Meant to Hear

are cautious, but they are not unkind.”

“I know,” I said.

He looked at me. “If she is willing to do this to you,” he said, “then I do not know who I am about to marry.”

We drove to Lily’s apartment together. I will not pretend I was not frightened. Not of Lily exactly, but of what the confrontation might produce, of the version of my daughter that would continue reading …