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I looked at him. “Did you encourage me to date her because of this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I encouraged you because she’s an excellent match.”

“Financially.”

“In every way.”

The answer should have reassured me. For months I’d taken my father’s approval as proof that he liked Lorrie, and perhaps he did in his own way. My mother certainly did, although she would have redesigned half of Lorrie’s wardrobe if anyone had given her permission.

But now I couldn’t separate any of it. The dinners. The conversations with Walter. Cleveland. Friday. The trust.

“You knew the match was good for both families,” my father said again, quieter now. “Don’t suddenly act offended by the practical side of marriage because you’ve developed a conscience.”

“I’ve always had a conscience.”

“You’ve had comfort and privilege.” Dad picked up his Scotch. “Are you suddenly a romantic?”

I thought of the white tulips, of her wet hair curling around her face after we’d swum in the pool Friday night, and of her laugh. I thought of her asking what I wanted, a question that had startled me more than it should have, because people had spent most of my life assuming they already knew what was best for me.

He gave a short laugh. “That’s what I thought.”

I left before I said something I couldn’t take back. The Saab had been sitting in the sun long enough that the inside was still warm when I climbed in, and for several seconds the air conditioner blew heat directly into my face.

I should call Lorrie. I pictured the telephone in the pool house with its long cord twisted from being dragged from one side of the room to the other, and I could almost see her answering it, probably barefoot, holding the receiver between her shoulder and ear while doing something else because standing still had never been one of her strengths.

I could drive over. We could sit beside the pool or in the kitchen or anywhere without our parents, and I could tell her the firm was in more trouble than I’d understood. I could tell her my father had mentioned her trust, and I could tell her I wanted nothing to do with it. All of that would be true.

The part I didn’t want to tell her came after, that I’d known for months that her money was one of the reasons my family had encouraged the match, and that, worse, in the beginning, I’d understood why.

That version of me hadn’t considered it sinister. He’d considered it another item in the long column of reasons everything made sense. Then, somewhere along the way, the column had stopped mattering.

I thought about the afternoon Lorrie fell asleep with her head on my shoulder during Romancing the Stone after spending the first hour insisting Michael Douglas wasn’t as charming as everyone seemed to think. She slept through most of the ending and still argued about it afterward as though she’d watched every minute.

I remembered looking down at her while she slept, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her hair spread across my shirt, and feeling something unfamiliar enough that I’d stayed completely still for nearly an hour rather than wake her.

At the time, I hadn’t given the feeling a name. After that, I started remembering things she said. I kept almond cookies in my apartment because she liked them. I knew which restaurants she complained about because the tables were too close together, which songs made her reach for the radio, and that she always claimed she wasn’t cold until she stole my jacket. I knew she laughed louder when she forgot people were listening.

Instead of calling her, I drove home. My apartment was dark when I arrived, and I switched on the lamp beside the sofa before dropping my keys into the ceramic bowl near the door. The quiet felt different after my father’s office, too empty for everything still moving through my head.

The ring was in the bedroom. I’d picked it up the week before and hidden the box in the back of my dresser drawer because my mother had already asked twice whether she could see it again.

She’d wanted a larger solitaire which was hardly surprising. Patricia believed engagement rings, Christmas wreaths, hotel lobbies, and most flower arrangements improved with scale.

I opened the drawer and took out the navy box. The diamond wasn’t enormous, although it had cost more than I should have spent. The setting sat low, with two smaller stones angled beside the center diamond, and the band curved slightly instead of running straight the way my mother preferred.

Lorrie had chosen it without realizing it. In June, we’d been walking back from lunch when she stopped outside a jeweler on State Street. There was a ring in the window with a curved band and two small stones beside the center one, and she leaned toward the glass.

“That one’s pretty.”

I’d looked at it. “Really?”

She turned toward me. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing.”

“You made a face.”

“I did not.”