The first glass of sparkling wine tasted fine until the exact second I noticed my daughter’s face, because the kind of fear that lives in a six-year-old doesn’t belong at a party, and once you see it you can’t pretend the music is louder than the truth.
We were on the back terrace of my coastal home outside Chatham, Massachusetts, where the salt air usually calmed me down and the ocean horizon usually reminded me that problems had edges, but that evening everything felt staged and sharp, like the whole property had been polished for strangers instead of lived in by a family.
It was supposed to be our engagement celebration, and the yard had been transformed into something that looked like a magazine spread, with white tents, warm string lights, too many servers in black vests, and a guest list that my fiancée, Brielle Sutter, had insisted was “small” only because she didn’t like admitting she’d invited nearly everyone who might ever matter to her.
Brielle stood beside me with her hand curled around my arm, her nails immaculate and her smile practiced, and she leaned in as if she were whispering something sweet when what she actually said was, “Adrian, shoulders back, and please stop looking around like you’re checking exits.”
I kept my voice even because raising it would have turned the moment into a spectacle, and I had already learned that Brielle collected spectacles the way some people collected jewelry. “I’m not checking exits,” I said, forcing my gaze to stay on her for a beat. “I’m looking for Lila.”
Brielle’s eyes flicked toward the crowd and then back to me, bright and cold at the same time under lashes that could have fanned a candle flame.
“She’s fine,” she said, with that familiar impatience that sounded like a door closing. “Nina is watching her.”
Our nanny, Nina, was near the bar trying to politely untangle herself from a man who’d clearly had one drink too many, which would have been funny on any other night, and I could already feel irritation rising in my chest, not at Nina, but at the fact that adults always found ways to make children someone else’s responsibility.
Brielle tightened her grip on my arm and angled her face toward a camera I hadn’t even noticed, because someone always had a camera. “This is our night,” she murmured.
