He’s getting married, she thinks, marveling at the very idea of it. Married. All this she’s known for months—that he’s starting a new life today, a life with someone who’s not Mom—but until now it was only ever just words, the vaguest of notions, the kind of future occasion that seems like it might not ever actually happen, that sneaks up on you like the monsters in childhood stories, all fur and teeth and claws, without any real substance.
