That was true. We were getting there, not already there, which is a distinction I was no longer going to smooth over for anyone’s comfort.
Ethan and I had lunch again, about a month before the wedding. It was sandwiches at the same deli. He seemed more present than he had before, which is the best way I can describe it — not lighter exactly, but more attentive, as if the conversation we’d had had recalibrated something.
He asked about my work. He asked about the apartment and the flickering overhead light, which I’d mentioned in passing once and he’d apparently retained. He asked if I’d thought about what I wanted to do with my savings now that the wedding money situation was resolved.
I said I had a few ideas.
He didn’t ask what they were, which was the right call.
He said, at the end of lunch, that he was glad I’d pushed back. That he understood why I had to.
I said, “Did you need me to tell you why?”
He smiled. “No. I just wanted you to know I get it.”
That was enough. Not everything, but enough.
The question of whether to attend the wedding was not, in the end, a complicated one. I wanted to see Ethan get married. I wanted to meet Olivia in the context of a family occasion where the misunderstanding had been cleared. I wasn’t required to perform happiness about events that hadn’t yet been fully processed, but I could attend as myself, which is always the only option anyway.