I’d memorized all the phrases, theDosandDon’ts. My outfits, my nails, my performance were all polished—ready to convince the world that we were real, that Liam was exactly the sort of man a cabinet minister could put his trust in, and I was the sort of woman who would love and support him while he did so.
I had it all locked down like I’d been revising for this moment for weeks.
So why did I feel like I wasn’t ready at all for whatever was comingnext?
Chapter 32
Andrea
“We are gatheredhere today not simply to witness a marriage, but to recognize a choice.”
The words carried across the Jardin Anglais. Rows of white chairs had been placed on the lawn running between the château and the lake. A child’s voice sounded behind me, quickly hushed by its mother.
It was just past five and the afternoon heat hadn’t quite disappeared yet. My neck and the back of my knees felt hot.
Next to me, Liam shifted in his seat and reached out to take my hand. I pressed my knees together and looked down at my program.
“Love is the choice to share the load. To stop carrying everything alone.”
He made it sound easy, like a bag of groceries you could just leave by the door. As if the weight didn’t fuse itself to your spine over time, shaping the way you stood and slept, the way you watched, constantly, for signs of collapse.
It was hard to imaginenotcarrying everything alone—it was what I’d done almost as long as I could remember.
In front of me, heads bobbed.
“Marriage is not the promise that life will be easy. It is the promise that life will be shared. That when one person falters, the other will step forward.”
The bride’s veil lifted and settled in the light breeze. Next to her, the groom stood with his weight balanced, listening intently to the officiant’s words as they carried smoothly across the gardens.
“Marriage asks us to let ourselves be known, and to allow ourselves to be supported. It asks for honesty, patience, and the courage to need one another.”
Liam was watching the officiant, as though listening to someone speak about reliance and being supported didn’t feel like a trapdoor opening beneath his feet.
Nobody around me seemed even vaguely uncomfortable with that idea.Why didI?
Dad had always been the support in our family. Reliable, steady, safe. Leaving the house at seven every day, home again twelve hours later. Chocolate for us from the service station on a Friday night, mowing the lawns on Saturday.
I’d never even considered that could end, that he could just disappear from our lives in a flash and never come back. No bargaining, no negotiation—just gone.
I thought of my mother’s face, eyes rimmed red, the day she’d told us about the accident. Eliza at eleven, sitting at the kitchen table and acting like she hadn’t even heard her, asking what was for dinner. The house had gone so quiet. Everything continued like nothing had changed. But everything had.
It had felt like everyone was waiting for something.
For me to say it was fine.
But how could I? It wasn’t, and I couldn’t change that. Ahuge, gaping hole had been ripped through our family, and it would never be fine again.
“And so, before these witnesses, and in this place, we invite you now to make those promises aloud.”
Liam adjusted his fingers around my hand, and his thumb brushed my knuckle. I stared straight ahead.
Did it ever occur to him to brace himself, to expect the ground to give way without warning? Did he know anything could happen at any moment and change everything in a heartbeat, or was I the only one who thought like that?
But I knew I wasn’t wrong. There were no guarantees.
The officiant smiled at the couple.
“Marriage is not endurance. It is interdependence.”
