“Ethan thinks you said yes,” she said, when I finished telling her about the texts.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Right, but he was told you volunteered.”
“I did not volunteer.”
“I know,” Sophie said. “So the question is who told him that.”
I thought about my mother’s face at the dinner table. The smile that was already there before I’d said anything. The way my father had been refilling glasses.
“They set the stage before they told me the amount,” I said. “They told Ethan I was on board before they told me the plan.”
Sophie made a sound that was not a word but conveyed a great deal.
“The deposit thing,” I said. “If there’s already a deposit, does that involve me in some way I don’t know about?”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
This was reassuring in a factual way that did not fully resolve the knot in my stomach, because the knot in my stomach was not purely about legal exposure. It was about being enrolled in a plan I hadn’t agreed to, by people who love me, and the particular kind of helplessness that produces.
Two days after that, Olivia texted me.
I want to be careful about Olivia, because she is not a villain in this story. She texted me to say she was so glad I was going to be part of making the day special, and that she hoped we could get coffee and talk through ideas, and that she was really touched that I’d offered.