True. If I don’t, Haley spends half her time gazing out the window and fretting that her dad and her brother won’t manage to survive without her. My new contract with Philip has provisions that make me responsible for ensuring a “safe working environment,” which I interpret to include the entire house. After all, anywhere Philip goes, he’s working. His mind is always on his projects. You understand, he told me at the engagement party. No doubt he believes we have a similar obsession with work. Let him think what he wants. My mind is always on Haley.

Anyway, I had the dangerously outdated furnace and water heater replaced within days, along with the siding on the house, which was letting in water and rot. The rest of my improvements to the house will be more gradual, as long as Philip doesn’t burn it down with one of his experiments. He’ll have a harder time with the new sprinkler system, I hope.

Haley turns back to the window and swallows.

“My parents are going to be in the foyer with my brothers and sisters,” I mention, casual as can be. Haley can put on a brave face all she wants, but I can see the flutter at the side of her neck and the way her breathing has shallowed as the moment approaches. Plenty happened before our engagement party to make uncertainties, like not knowing who’s on the other side of the door, loom larger, and darker. “They’ll be in a receiving line to greet the guests, so we’ll see them first. Gerard is already inside.”

“He is?”

“Yes.” I hold my phone out so she can see the all-clear text he sent me twenty minutes ago. The astonishing thing about Haley Constantine is that, if I press her, she’ll admit she’s worried about me, perhaps more than she’s worried for herself. It’s touching that anyone outside of my closest siblings would suffer a second of doubt about my safety. It does a strange, squeezing thing to my heart. “Let’s go in. The anticipation is always worse.”

Thomas helps her out of the car first, and I follow her, getting a hand to the small of her back as soon as I can.

“Do I still look okay?” Haley asks.

“Nothing in the world is more beautiful than you.”

Then there’s no more time left. The door opens in front of us and we step through into the main foyer of the Morelli mansion. The space is meant to be imposing in its darkness, but now it overflows with light. Light from the chandeliers, strings of bulbs wrapped around decorations, all of them done by many, many hands over the past weeks. I recognize Eva in the details. The party is out here in the foyer, it’s through most of this floor, but first there is a gauntlet to pass: the receiving line.