“You’re late,” is the first thing Mr. Walker says to us—well, to Graham—when we enter the dining room. He is not a man who has time for pleasantries, so his greetings are usually insults or instructions.

Graham fears his father more than I fear his mother. Though maybe fear isn’t the right word. I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid she can see under my carefully crafted costume. I could distract Graham with my body, and Mr. Walker and Reed with fantasies of my body, and Veronica with the fake closeness she thinks we have, but Mrs. Walker has the power to see right through me. If anyone was going to figure out I was a fraud, it would be her. And she’d kick me out of this family faster than Graham could say but Mom, I love her...

Graham’s fear of his father is forged from lack of affirmation. Mr. Walker knows all he needs to do is tell Graham that he did a good job. But Graham will never get it. That would mean Mr. Walker acknowledging that someone he raised might have turned out better. Graham is better looking. Graham is more successful. Graham is marrying someone hotter. Graham has it all. So Mr. Walker holds all Graham’s flaws over his head, letting them drop in the most convenient moments.

“You told us 7:15,” Graham says, releasing my hand to look down at his watch, an early wedding present I gave him last week. Everyone but Graham recognizes the irony in that—me getting him a two-thousand-dollar watch with his own money and calling it a “gift”—but he loves it. “It’s 7:16. Give me a break.”

Mr. Walker approaches me slowly, looking me up and down with an approving smile that sends some vomit up my throat behind my oh-so-lovely grin. I love being objectified by my sixty-five-year-old father-in-law. It’s not only like he’s taking my clothes off with his eyes, but also snapping a picture of my naked body so that he can think about it the next time he’s having sex with Cheryl.

I know I look the part. Lena and I spent two months finding white outfits appropriate for all the evenings leading up to the aisle. A strappy minidress for the family dinner. A white jumpsuit for the cocktail party. A lace white calf-length dress for the rehearsal dinner. A silky white pajama set. A white wool coat and white shawl and a furry white option if I don’t like the shawl. If I weren’t going straight to hell, I’d have enough clothes for every possible event in heaven.

For this tradition-obsessed old-school family, our courtship happened fast and our engagement even faster. Anything I could do to paint myself as the picture of a perfect bride, I would do, until they were obedient dogs in my Pavlovian experiment. Eliza. Bride. Eliza. Bride. Eliza. Bride.