Chapter 7 - My Mother Asked the Question I Avoided
A year after Ethan’s conviction, my mother asked, “Do you still want to get married someday?”
I hated the question.
Not because marriage scared me.
Because everyone treated my canceled wedding as tragedy rather than escape.
“I don’t know.”
“You used to.”
“I used to want a wedding.”
“Difference?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
Noah and I had been dating eight months.
Slow.
He knew entire story because his job intersected with case, but we rarely discussed Ethan.
That mattered.
Noah had been married before.
His ex-wife remarried.
No bitterness.
He spoke about relationship like history, not indictment.
One evening, I asked why they divorced.
“We became polite roommates who wanted different lives.”
“No affair?”
“No fraud ring?”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
I laughed.
“Boring.”
“Very.”
Healthy relationships were apparently terrible content.
But not always.
At ten months, Noah told me he loved me.
I panicked.
Not outwardly.
Internally.
He noticed.
“You don’t have to say it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at him.
Maybe I didn’t.
Love had previously become leverage.
Ethan used future marriage to justify present access.
Noah asked for nothing.
That scared me too because trust requires choosing uncertainty.
Three weeks later, I told him.
“I love you.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
“No dramatic speech?”
“I had one. It involved PowerPoint.”
May you like
I laughed.
Healing can sound like laughing at things that once made you flinch.
