I had experienced that as a woman integrating herself into a family.

The therapist called it something else.

She said: “She was managing the interface.”

Part Five: The Morning

The morning of the wedding was, until three o’clock in the afternoon, one of the better mornings of my life, and I am not going to pretend otherwise now.

Samantha and I got to Pine Crest at nine with the cake in the back of her car, and the pine smell coming off the hills was exactly what I had wanted when I picked that venue.