And this truly was her. This was her decision, her happiness. Marrying George wasn’t something she did to help her family. Money flowed through her family’s fingers like springwater. They couldn’t seem to keep hold of it. And generations of Morris women had sincerely tried to fall in love with rich men. Eby’s sister, Marilee, had been their one true hope. Rich men liked beautiful wives, and Marilee was sure to snatch one with her blond hair, which shone like rabbit fire, and her fierce green eyes. But the moment Marilee set eyes on the boy who filled their family’s car tank with gas, she was gone. To everyone’s surprise, it had been Eby, tall and strange with crooked features—whose one true accomplishment was that she was the first child to read every single book in the school library—who ended up marrying rich. Morris relatives in five surrounding states had attended the wedding, their hands out for money, like this was their triumph. What they didn’t seem to understand was that Eby didn’t do it for them. She’d been in love with George since they were children. But not a single soul believed her.

George was talking of Amsterdam again as they approached what the Parisians called the Bridge of the Untrue, rumored that young lovers weren’t able to cross if their love wasn’t real. It was the last bridge they crossed before their hotel came into view. Eby almost pulled back as they drew near. She didn’t want to return to their hotel so soon. But that made her smile to herself. When did after midnight become soon? What she was really avoiding was the post that would inevitably be waiting for them: more concerned letters from her mother, more requests for loans from relatives, more invitations from her new peers to join clubs and parties when they returned, more snarly notes from her sister, Marilee, for whom all of this was supposed to happen, and because it hadn’t, she seethed like water the second before it rolls to a boil. There might even be a phone message, which the owner of the hotel thought was rude. Eby’s mother didn’t understand. She was a typical southern American woman whose social lifeline was the telephone wire, to be used as often as possible.

It would take time in Amsterdam for their old lives to catch up to them again. They would have a few weeks to themselves there, at least. That was good.

Eby and George stepped onto the bridge. Ancient lemon-ball lamps appeared one at a time in the fog, growing gradually brighter as they approached, then dimming out as they passed, as if invisible hands were flicking them on and off.