Or, the Fisher part of my brain translated, she didn’t want to risk him and me falling back into old Dad-established patterns and ruining this fragile new bond the three of us were building byover-exposing us to each other. Elias had been nothing but helpful27since I reached out to him about my job application, but our devil’s advocate programming ran deep. Supportive siblinghood didn’t happen overnight.
Two pieces of toast popped out of the toaster. Elias slid them onto a plate and passed them to me. ‘Bridegroom first. I’ll make more.’
I’d been dreading spending the day alone, given the million-plus possible ways for me to drive myself into an anxiety spiral, so having Elias there helped. We lingered for a long time over breakfast, talking about his fellowship, my new job, what a piece of shit Matt was for refusing to pay child support even though he’d somehow managed to financially support two families for more than a decade, how Fi’s eldest kid Lex was like a tiny adult now, how devastated Rosie and Georgia were that they weren’t going to be at the wedding because their sole ambition in life was to be flower girls. ‘I’m under strict instructions to film every second of the ceremony,’ Elias said, reaching for the almost-empty jar of Dad’s fancy marmalade. ‘Fi’s just as sad as the girls that she won’t be there. She’s given me a list of requested angles and everything.’
I’d been about to fight him for the last of the marmalade, but I let him take it. ‘Do you think it’s the right thing to do? Not telling Fi that Sadie and I aren’t real?’
‘Do I think it’s a great idea? No. But would telling her be a worse idea? Absolutely.’
He spread the marmalade on his last piece of toast. ‘One, she doesn’t need more things to worry about, not right now. And two, she might not be a scholar, but she’s still a Fisher. She’s as competitive as we are. If she knew you were faking a whole marriage for her, who the fuck knows what she’d try to do to one-up you?’
It was hard to argue with that logic.
‘Besides,’ Elias said, taking a bite, ‘the marriageisreal. History is full of people who were married to each other for reasons other than love.’
That phrase, casually uttered over breakfast, ricocheted repeatedly around my brain as the day went on, the volume turning steadily up and up as the time came for me to start getting ready.
I am not in love with you, Sadie had snapped at me, the day she’d come to me with this scheme, this madness with some method in it.I have also figured out that you’re not in love with me.
But she was still going to marry me.
In the eyes of everyone – the law, the world, the university, my sister – Sadie Shaw was going to bemy fucking wife.
‘Your Gretna Green package didn’t come with any flowers, did it?’ Elias said, poking his head into the bathroom.
‘No,’ I replied, trying and failing to get a rogue piece of my hair to lie flat as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in my shirt-sleeves. ‘We went with one of the cheapest packages they offer. It includes the ceremony, the paperwork, half an hour with a photographer and that’s it.’28
‘Then I didn’t risk incurring Mum’s wrath by picking some of her precious roses for nothing. Or ruin my algorithm forever by searching for “how to make a boutonniere”.’
Elias had pinned a yellow rose and a spray of greenery to the lapel of his suit. ‘I think yellow roses have traditionally meantplatonic love,’ he said, helping me into my jacket, ‘but the language of flowers is outside my particular area of historical expertise.’
‘Sadie might know.’ I took the boutonniere he handed me and turned it over idly in my fingers, surprised and touched by the gesture. ‘She likes gardening.’
It had been a familiar sight in the share house, Sadie putting on her gardening gloves and going off to work in the vegetable patch she’d established in the backyard. When we’d sat down one night and written our wish list for rental properties in Hobart, she’d scribbled ‘green space’ under the Would Be Nice column.It’s not a must,she’d said,but if we could find somewhere I could make a garden, I’d like that.
Gardens didn’t happen overnight.
Sadie Shaw and I were going to make ahometogether.
Elias took the boutonniere back from me and pinned it to my lapel. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting her. It’s a rare woman who’d have the gall to do something like this.’
What an incredibly profound understatement.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said.
‘Mm-hmm.’
I hesitated.
‘When you were in my shoes,’ I said at last, ‘if Julia had come to you with an offer like this… would you have done it?’
‘Yes.’
Elias’s demeanour was distracted as he tried to rearrange the greenery to best showcase the rose, but his voice was certain. ‘She wouldn’t have even had to finish the sentence. If she’d mentioned that partner hire was an option, I would have been down on one knee.’
I might not know my brother as well as I should, but I didn’t think he was just talking about the allure of secure employment.
‘Unfortunately for me, though,’ he said, ‘Julia already had a husband.’
