I told myself I already knew the answer.

I did not.

Not really, not in the place that mattered, not until a man with a microphone gave it to me in front of three hundred people.

The candle in the back window is a hard thing to blow out.

Sometimes another person has to do it for you, cruelly, all at once, before you are finally free of the drafty little room it was lighting.\n\nChapter 7 — The Velvet Invitation

The invitation arrived in a velvet box, which told me everything about the wedding I needed to know before I read a word of it.