I almost laughed.

I did not.

“Everything’s perfect,” I said.

And the remarkable thing, the thing I keep returning to, is that he believed me completely.

He had no idea.

Neither did Linda, sitting wherever she was sitting with her satisfaction and her plans.

They believed the wedding was unfolding exactly as they had arranged it — the nervous bride, the paperwork, the soft, secure woman who would do whatever her husband asked once the ring was on.

They believed they were two days from the finish line.