Chapter 9:

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We landed in the early afternoon. Somewhere over the last stretch I had been turning the Calloway story over since he told it. The details kept surfacing — the light, the fence, his face as a boy — and none of them were quite sharp enough to hold. I laughed at something Thane said about the groundskeeper, because the alternative was to sit with the full weight of twenty years, and laughing was easier.

“I prefer to call it patience,” Thane said.

“I know you do.”

My mother was at the front door before the car stopped. She had been crying, which meant she had been watching from the window for a while.

𝘙𝖾𝗮𝖽 o𝗻 а𝗇𝘺 𝘥ev𝗶с𝘦 𝗈ո g𝗮lո𝗈vе𝗅𝘴.𝘤o𝗆

“Years,” she said into my shoulder. “You sent money. You called on holidays. I received postcards, Roslyn.”

“I called more than holidays.”

“Barely more.” She pulled back, looked at me, looked at Thane standing behind me with both bags, and her face did something entirely unsubtle. “I had excellent instincts,” she said, in the general direction of the door. “From the very beginning.”

“You did,” Thane said, and sounded like he meant it.

She pointed at him. “Polite.” Then to me: “Thank me.”

“Thank you. You are very wise. I am deeply grateful.”

She studied me for a moment, decided to accept it, and went inside to make tea.

Thane’s parents received us the next morning. I had prepared for some version of residual coldness — I had declined this marriage twice, from a distance, over several years. But his mother took my hands at the door and said we were very glad, simply, without anything underneath it.

That afternoon she walked me through what she called the jewelry room: glass cases along three walls, stones and settings organized by era, all labeled in her handwriting. She told me to take whatever I wanted — it would all come to us eventually anyway.

I thought briefly of Cedric’s mother, who had explained over tea that a girl from my background could not really expect jewelry for a wedding. Being welcomed into a good family was itself the gift. I had smiled and drunk the tea.

I had drunk a lot of tea in that relationship, smiling.

The engagement party was on the fifteenth, at the Grand Meridian. High ceilings, flowers that someone had clearly argued over, a crowd I was still learning. Thane’s friends, my family, a version of my own life that I was just beginning to recognize as mine.

Callum arrived with a woman named Petra who had strong opinions about the centerpieces, which I appreciated immediately. He crossed the room looking like someone with a confession to make.

“You actually did it,” he said.

“You doubted me.”

“Fifteen percent. That is not doubting.” He looked down for a second. “I also want to say — that night at the party. The handkerchief. I should have spoken up sooner.”

“You did something. That is more than most.”

He accepted that without making himself feel better about it.

When the formal moment came, Thane put the ring on my finger — the right weight, the right design, exactly what I had asked for. He looked up and said, quiet enough that it was only for me: “You stepped in front of me once. I would like to do the same for you from now on.” His voice was not entirely steady.

I squeezed his hand. The room applauded. Petra was already crying. My mother was crying harder. Thane’s father stared at the ceiling with the focused expression of a man who was not going to cry at a party.

Callum found me twenty minutes later, by the window, with his bad-news expression already arranged. “Cedric saw the announcement. He is on his way.”

I looked toward the entrance. Thane had arranged four security guards that morning, positioned near the doors, without saying a word about it to me.

“Good,” I said. “We are ready.”

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