I set the cake knife down.
“What exactly did you discuss?”
Jason reached for my hand.
I moved it away.
“Sophia, this is not the place.”
“You chose the place.”
“I didn’t choose this announcement.”
“But you knew about the plan.”
He glanced toward his mother.
Eleanor answered for him.
“We knew you would be emotional if we raised the subject before the wedding.”
A few guests gasped.
She heard them and lifted her chin.
“That apartment is far too large for two young people.
I live alone.
Jason agreed that once you were married, the family should make practical decisions together.”
I stared at her.
“You planned to move into my home.”
“Our family home,” she corrected.
“And where were Jason and I supposed to live?”
“With me temporarily,” she said, as though explaining something obvious to a child.
“Young couples do not need luxury.
A little sacrifice would have been good for you.”
Jason stepped between us.
“Mom, stop talking.”
Eleanor looked offended.
“I am trying to explain.”
“No,” my mother said.
“Please continue.
I think Sophia deserves to hear the entire plan.”
Jason’s jaw tightened.
“There was no plan,” he said.
My mother tapped the deed with one finger.
“Then why did you go pale when I opened this folder?”
He looked around the ballroom.
Two hundred people were waiting for his answer.
For the first time since I had known him, charm failed him completely.
He lowered his voice.
“Sophia and I were getting married.
Eventually, the apartment would have become part of our shared life.”
“It was already going to be part of our shared life,” I said.
“We were supposed to live there.”
“That was one option.”
One option.
The phrase cut through the last excuse I had been preparing for him.
For months, I had imagined breakfasts at the kitchen island, shoes kicked off near the private elevator, and Sunday mornings with sunlight moving across the living room floor.
Jason had listened to those plans.
He had nodded.
He had helped me choose which closet would be his.
All the while, he had been discussing a different future with his mother.
Eleanor folded her arms.
“No one was stealing anything,” she said.
“Sophia would still have benefited.
Property stays in the family.”
“My family,” I said, “or yours?”
“We are one family now.”
