After I flooded the birdbath, I took a closer look at my mom’s white wedding dress when I moved it from the shower rod. This was when I was showering and getting dressed for the rehearsal. I could see the row of eyelets, which were loosely laced together at the back of the dress; it appeared that the laces ran along her spine, all the way from her waist to where they were tied between her shoulder blades. Even wrinkle-free and at rest on the coat hanger, it did not look like a comfortable dress. I noted that my mother’s shoulders would be bare; I worried that everybody would see the straps of her bra, but I could see there were cups for her breasts in the front of the dress. Did the dress have a kind of built-in bra? Given my newly acquired composure, my adopted insouciance, I was determined not to ask my mom how she would manage her bust in the viselike grip of such a dress.

We spoke instead of the diminishing water pressure we had noticed in our respective showers. My mother had showered and dressed for the rehearsal in her bathroom and bedroom on the second floor; Molly had prevented the girl jocks from using that bathroom. Her shower, my mom told me, had “piss-poor” water pressure, and she had run out of hot water. I was tempted to ask why the girl jocks were always showering, but I resolved to be steadfast in my indifference. I was making up myself, like a fictional character. I was creating the adult I wanted to become, which I saw as inseparable from my becoming a fiction writer. In longing for the infinite powers of detached observation, I was becoming a third-person omniscient narrator—if only in my mind.

No, I hadn’t written anything—hence the only fiction I was composing was myself. I’m not generalizing. I don’t know if other writers, when they’re growing up, go through a similar disconnect between the hesitant teenagers they are and the all-knowing narrators they seek to become.

I practiced my new persona on Henrik at the rehearsal. In my grandmother’s garden, the wedding tent was set up for the marriage ceremony—the aisle was the path between the flower beds, and the folding chairs circled the sacred spot where the vows would be exchanged. Henrik was slouched in two chairs—khakis, a blue blazer, a blue button-down shirt, the top button of the shirt unbuttoned, his loosened necktie a statement of indolence. Henrik had his lacrosse stick with him, as if it were needed at the rehearsal.

“The ring bearer is supposed to be a child, Adam—the best man is rarely the offspring of the bride,” Henrik informed me.