The flight from New York to the private airport in Stowe, Vermont, is a short one-hour hop over two and a half states, but for some reason today’s journey feels more exhausting than it usually does and we’re not even at the airport yet. I try to push the fatigue back, not give value to the anticipatory anxiety growing in my chest. But the closer we get to Vermont—to the wedding—the more my chest starts to feel heavy, my eyes weary, my head foggy. Though that’s normal. It’s just prewedding jitters. It’s all just prewedding jitters.

Graham takes my hand in the back of the Uber and squeezes it, smiling like someone would on the way to their wedding, and I remind myself to take a deep breath and do the same. One step at a time.

When we arrive at Teterboro, the Walker family’s preferred airport because of its proximity to Manhattan and strict privacy rules, Graham hands our passports through the back seat window to a stocky Port Authority officer who looks comically oversized in the small security booth. We arrived five minutes earlier than expected thanks to my flying anxiety.

Anytime I hand over identification, I get inexplicably nervous. As if I haven’t done my research. As if my identity wasn’t a life in the making. But I brush it off by the time the man hands our documents back and wishes us a safe flight. As if we can control that.

The glass double doors of the terminal part like the Red Sea before us and a man who looks like Harrison Ford but sounds like Cyndi Lauper appears, flanked by two tall associates in black suits. “Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he sings, snapping his fingers at the men, an instruction for them to collect our suitcases from the trunk. God forbid we lift a pound of our own things.

I’ve met him many times—nearly every single time I’ve taken this trip with Graham, which turns out to be at least once a year—but I can’t remember his name. Louis, maybe? Pronounced the French way—Louee? I’m sure Graham knows. He remembers everyone’s name—a business habit his father taught him: remember their name and they’ll feel important, and if you’re in a position to make an equal feel important, you have the upper hand.