The argument that sent her to Henry's house had begun with a wedding venue. I wish I could say it was about something enormous, something that could not reasonably have been resolved. In truth it began with a contract and a deposit, which was exactly the kind of problem two adults preparing to marry should have been able to discuss without injuring each other.
Rachel had found a restored warehouse in River North with exposed brick, hanging lights, long wooden tables, and enough industrial charm to make every photograph look expensive. She wanted a Saturday in September. The venue required fifteen thousand dollars to secure it, followed by a payment schedule that would have committed us to more money than either of us had ever spent on one event.
I wasn't opposed to the venue. I liked the high windows and the room where the ceremony would be held. I liked the thought of my friends and hers in the same place, the long dinner, the music. What worried me was a cancellation provision Rachel had skimmed, a clause allowing the venue to retain most of the deposit even under circumstances that sounded far less unusual than the language implied.
I asked for one weekend to review the agreement and compare it with the two other places we had toured. Rachel heard hesitation where I meant responsibility. She had spent weeks sharing photographs with her friends, describing the setting to her mother, and imagining the entire evening. In her mind we had already chosen it. By asking to read the contract, I was apparently asking her to give up a dream.
"You read contracts for a living," she told me, standing at the kitchen counter while the late afternoon light turned our windows gold.
"Exactly," I said. "Which is why I want to know what we're signing."
"You could try being excited for five minutes."
"I am excited. I'm also interested in what happens if one of us gets sick, or the venue closes, or the date has to change."
She gave a sharp laugh. "You make marriage sound like an insurance claim."
"I'm talking about the venue, Rachel. Not the marriage."
"Everything becomes a negotiation with you."
I looked down at the agreement on my laptop and resisted the impulse to defend my entire personality. We had gone through versions of this exchange before. If I explained carefully, I was cold. If I raised my voice, I was frightening her. If I gave in quickly, the disagreement disappeared for a day, then resurfaced later as proof that I hadn't wanted what she wanted until she forced me to.
I asked her what she actually needed from me. I meant the question sincerely. She said she needed to feel chosen, without conditions, without an asterisk beside the choice. I told her that choosing her was precisely why I was unwilling to sign fifteen thousand dollars away without knowing what it meant. We were still speaking in ordinary voices then. We might even have found our way through it.
But Rachel said, "Sometimes I think you would've proposed to any woman who stayed long enough and fit the budget."