Are you sure you want to do this?” one of them asked me on my wedding day. “Yes, of course I want to get married,” I’d said. She rolled her eyes and snorted. “You’re not getting married, though, right, as much as you’re becoming the single mother of a seven-year-old boy.” She thought I was signing up for a lifelong burden instead of a partner. I laughed. I repeated that story for years afterwards. I thought
