We could manage it. I have never in eleven years told my husband what to do with the money he earns, and watching him hand his sister something felt like watching a man finally get to be the older brother instead of the repairman.
A month before the wedding we stopped by Kiley’s apartment to drop off a dish she’d left at our house.
The front door was open about six inches.
Before we knocked I heard her laughing in the kitchen with two of the bridesmaids, and they were talking about the bachelorette weekend, which at that point was a cabin up at Coldbrook — two nights, wineries, restaurants, the usual games.
Then one of them said my name.
“Is Grant’s wife coming?”
And Kiley laughed and said, “She kind of has to be invited. He’s paying for half of it.”
Then she dropped her voice, but not by enough.
“I’m changing it anyway. There’s that adults-only pool place out past Ledford.”
One of them asked why.
And Kiley said, “Because she’ll never come if she has to wear a swimsuit.”
They all laughed.
One of them — Danika, I found out later — said, “Okay, that’s actually awful.”
And Kiley said, “Oh, come on. She wears cardigans in July. You really think she’s getting in a pool with twenty girls taking pictures?”
I stood on that landing with a casserole dish in my hands.
