“But look at you, a married woman now.” Mary’s words break into Wendy’s thoughts, and something catches in her chest. She blinks rapidly, and Mary shifts their hands so now she is the one holding Wendy, the pressure of her thumbs steadying Wendy so she lets out a shaky breath.

Mary leans forward, their foreheads touch, and the world rights itself. Wendy lets her weight rest there for a moment. She closes her eyes, feeling the solidity of Mary. She opens her eyes, breathes out and sits back, only slightly dizzy now.

A married woman. The past few months have been a blur. Wendy is scarcely used to it herself. She feared it at first, then began to think it could be something she wants—a family, not like Michael and John, but one all of her own, chosen and not formed by blood. But even as she and Ned learn more of each other, she cannot shake the sense of something missing in her life, something she could not name. Until here, now.

This. Mary’s hands in hers. The thought frightens her, too big to fully contemplate. She wants, but she isn’t certain exactly what it is she wants, and so she pushes the feeling down as it tries to rise up in her like an all-consuming tide.

“Tell me how it is with you,” Mary says. “Are you all right? How does your husband treat you? Do you love him?”

“I scarcely know him.” Wendy pulls her hands back, folds them in her lap. The weight of all her doubt and uncertainty, lifted a moment before, returns. Words pile up behind her teeth, but Wendy can’t think of how to speak them. This is Mary, they’ve never had secrets before, but not all of the secrets she carries now are hers to share.

Husband and wife. Of one flesh. Is this what it means to be joined in marriage, truly? From now on, she must carry Ned’s burdens too, as well as her own. If Mary were truly part of their family, perhaps… No, she pushes the thoughts down again. It is too much, too soon.

She focuses instead on Mary’s question, thinking how to answer it. Ned. Wendy conjures up his face, his kind eyes, his blushing stammer. At times, it barely makes itself known in his speech. Other times, usually when his father is around or a visit is imminent, he can scarcely get out his words.

Wendy thinks of the day they met, how he could barely look at her. And she herself, newly walked out of this place, practically new to the world. Can it really be less than a year? It seems like a lifetime ago.

Wendy looks up and finds Mary watching her patiently. She aches, the urge to speak and remain silent warring in her. If she could simply communicate with a look and have Mary understand everything that she is, everything she and Ned are together, it would be so much simpler.