The great house loomed above and behind me, casting a thick, wide, and long shadow. It was probably my imagination, but birds seemed to be careful about entering it. Eating my dinner and breakfast alone had left me with an unexpected feeling of doom and depression. I should be feeling just the opposite, but I felt everyone’s eyes on me and thought they were soaked in pity. What were they thinking? This could be your life now, Corrine Dixon? Get used to the hollow sound of footsteps, the long, dark shadows flowing out of corners, and the smell of faded flowers?

I could hear the workers off to my right completing the work for the wedding and reception. Mrs. Wilson told me at breakfast that one of the older gardeners who predicted weather based on his old aches and pains assured her that we’d have a perfect day. Did a perfect wedding day guarantee a perfect life? Were vows made before a minister more powerful and lasting than promises followed by “cross my heart and hope to die”?

But at the moment, I wasn’t thinking of our gala wedding so much as I was thinking about Daisy and the other girls, imagining what they might do today. Maybe they all had gone cycling together, some of the boys coming along. I was sure I had become the biggest topic of discussion. I could hear Daisy saying, “Didn’t I tell you Corrine would be the first to marry?” The parents of some of them surely had been invited. I was probably quite the celebrity, but I wasn’t feeling as happy, as successful, and as important as I had imagined I would.

Who would be my new friends here? Would they all be older women, wives of Garland’s business associates? Suddenly, I was seeing the world from my mother’s point of view. She had faced the same sort of future when she married my father. My father wasn’t as rich, of course, but his world and Garland’s ran on the same tracks, powered by engines fed by the same sort of ambition. When did ambition become greed and the greed become stronger than any other motive, even love? Who could answer these questions for me?