I watched several of Brenda’s own family members lower their heads, unable to look up, and I understood that they had heard, in that sentence, the same thing I had.

I reached into the pocket of my coat, took out the gold band I had bought to put on her finger, and set it down on the small table beside the microphone.

“I will never marry a woman,” I said, “who sees my daughter as a competitor to be removed from my life.” I was not triumphant, saying it.

There was no victory in it.

There was only a great and settled sadness, and beneath the sadness, certainty.