I dropped to my knees, unzipped the hidden lining of my suitcase, and took out the $45,000 cashier’s check my parents had given me as a safety net, along with $2,500 in wedding cash.

I put my passport and the marriage certificate we’d signed the day before into my backpack.

A profound, almost dizzying lightness moved through me.

Backpack on my shoulders, suitcase handle tight in my grip, I walked out of the room, ready to walk out of a fourteen-hour marriage.

I have thought since about that hidden lining, and what it meant that the check was there at all.

My parents had given it to me before the wedding — a safety net, my father had called it, pressing the envelope into my hands with a look I had not fully understood at the time.