“Of course I know. But for various reasons, the fifteenth was the best date for everyone involved.” I sat back, satisfied with the breadth and scope of my grand falsehood and marveling at the calming effect the act of lying was having on my nervous system. Then I lowered my voice to a whisper, as if about to impart a secret of the utmost sanctity: “Plus, he felt very strongly about that date for us. Very strongly.”

Very strongly against it.

As Adrienne and Gayle chatted away and their voices became a blur, I thought back to when we had picked that date, and I tried to remember exactly what he’d said when, for whatever reasons at the time (the convenience of our many New York–based out-of-town guests; the availability of venues and caterers and non-religious personnel; the mere sound of it), I had announced with absolute conviction:

“April fifteenth.”

“Oh God, no! Not the fifteenth!” he had said. It was all coming back to me now.

“What’s wrong with the fifteenth?”

He blanched, looked away, played with his hands. “Nothing. It’s just . . . well . . . it’s nothing. Never mind.”

“No,” I insisted. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It just has bad associations for me, that’s all.”

“Bad childhood associations?” I asked. I was thinking specifically of all that nonsense with his mother’s forcing him to cook and the alleged ensuing trauma. “Does this have something to do with your fear of being feminized?”

“No. No. No.” He shook his head, waved his hands. If only! he seemed to be pantomiming.

“Then what? Basketball? Football?” He seemed, in retrospect, to be racking his brain for a suitable explanation, for something other than the truth. But at the time, I thought it was just one of his minor breakdowns. “It’s just . . . well . . . ” and then he blurted: “Well, it’s tax day.”

“Tax day? So what?”

He shrugged, unable to speak.

“We’ll file our returns by then—before then, even, if you want,” I’d said, trying hard to sound reassuring but suspecting, correctly I saw now, that he was already beyond help.

“Yes, well, I’m sure we will. But it’s just that, you know, tax day doesn’t seem to be the appropriate day to have our wedding. Our anniversary, then, would always be on April fifteenth, and an otherwise memorable and romantic occasion would always be associated with deductions, and forms, and calculations, and memories of Ad—”

“Addition? Subtraction? Math?” Was there another latent phobia I knew nothing about? Yet another layer to my beloved, troubled Sybil?

“Yes, math.” He stopped, sighed, spent with (false) confession, great relief. “I’d just rather not have our happiest, most important moment together immortalized and minimized by stress.”

“You certainly have a point,” I said, stretching the truth just a little bit (he had a point; not, in my mind, a terribly important one). If I’d only known. “But April fifteenth is the only date that works”—and here I pulled out all the charts and spreadsheets and file folders and legal pads and schedules and date books and wedding planners, the tools of my trade—“until August.”