I told her about the village, about the old building and how strange it felt to enjoy a morning while my marriage was collapsing. My mother said grief did not require me to be miserable every minute to prove it was genuine. She asked if I remembered the year after my father died, when she laughed at a comedy on television and then cried because the laughter had felt like disloyalty. I remembered, because I had sat beside her and told her Dad would have laughed too.
"Then offer yourself the kindness you offered me," she said.
I watched a little boat cross the harbor. "I don't know if I'm leaving him," I confessed. "I think I am. But I say it out loud and then I remember he asked me to marry him, and everyone was there, and I feel like I have to account for the whole wedding before I'm allowed to change my mind."
"The wedding happened," my mother said. "It was beautiful, and you meant your vows. You do not have to rewrite those facts to decide the marriage is no longer safe for you. Your future isn't collateral for the money we spent on flowers."
The phrase stayed with me through the ride back. My wedding had been expensive, though not extravagant by the standards of Julian's colleagues. My mother had contributed toward the conservatory rental, Nina had helped design the flowers and I had spent savings I could have used elsewhere because the day mattered to me. I wanted to believe such an investment required us to try harder. But money already spent could not return the trust Julian had used without my consent.
When I reached the resort, the receptionist handed me an envelope from the local excursion company containing copies of the photographs taken that morning. In one, I stood in front of the old customs building, wind pulling hair across my face, laughing at something Leona had said. I looked tired and sunburned and completely unlike the carefully arranged wedding portraits waiting in the photographer's online gallery. I kept that picture on the desk for the rest of the trip because it showed a person I had almost forgotten how to be.
Friday was the day Westbridge had scheduled its investment committee review. I knew because Julian had reminded me about it so often, describing it as the meeting that could make his career. I tried to ignore the date, but the old reflex remained: I wanted to know whether the report was finished, whether he had slept and whether his presentation had gone well. I had always been proud of how much care I offered the people I loved. Now I was discovering that care could continue long after the person receiving it had stopped being careful with me.
At ten in the morning, Nina forwarded a response from Westbridge's legal department. The company acknowledged that no design contract existed with Lark & Line and said it had instructed the project team not to represent our studio as committed until the matter was reviewed. They asked us to identify which materials belonged to us and whether we had granted permission for their internal use. It was not a victory or an admission of wrongdoing. It was the beginning of a formal process with dates, documents and people who could no longer treat the issue as a domestic disagreement.