The one thing he did was, at the wedding, find me during the reception and say, simply: ‘I’m glad you came. I know it wasn’t simple.’ And then he went back to his wedding.
That was the right thing to say and the right amount to say. I have a good feeling about Noah.
## On Asking Directly
There’s a practical lesson somewhere in all of this, though I resist calling it a lesson because it makes the whole thing sound like a fable with a moral, which is not how real life works.
The practical thing is: ask directly. If Elise had texted me when my mother told her I’d agreed, the whole structure of what happened could not have been built. If my mother had asked me before she offered the dress, nothing that followed could have happened. If I had said clearly, much earlier, ‘I need you to ask me directly when you want something that’s mine,’ the pattern might have shifted before it produced this specific consequence.
None of this ‘if only’ thinking is useful for the past. But I think about the forward version: what does asking directly look like in practice, going forward?
It looks like: if something is being offered to you as though someone gave permission, and you did not hear that permission directly from the person whose thing it is, you ask that person. Even if the asking feels awkward. Even if the go-between says it’s all been sorted. Even if asking might produce an answer you don’t want.