I sat in the chair across from her. Owen sat at the other end of the couch.
“I’ll start,” Claire said. “If that’s okay.”
I nodded.
She talked for about ten minutes without interruption. She told me that the decision to not invite me had come from a confluence of things, and she named them: the anxiety about how the day would look, the January dinner and the story she’d told about our relationship, the Christmas comment interpreted through that frame, and a longer accumulated feeling that she couldn’t quite be herself when I was watching, because I was always slightly more competent and slightly more put-together and she had spent years feeling that the gap between us reflected on her.
“That last part isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s mine. You didn’t make me feel that way — I built the feeling and then I pointed it at you.”
I started to say something and she held up her hand.
“Let me finish. I’m not done.”
I waited.
“The venue thing.” She took a breath. “You did the right thing. You were the person financing a wedding you were excluded from. Of course you contacted the venue. I should have contacted Jordan myself the second I realized what the situation was, and I didn’t because I was hoping that somehow it would resolve without anyone having to say anything clearly, and that’s not how you handle things and that’s not how I should be handling things either.”
She looked at me steadily.