“But Mom—”

Before I could finish, she’d already handed the keys to Steven and climbed into the passenger seat. She closed the door.

I looked at Jeremiah helplessly. Mr. Fisher was already in his car, and Jeremiah was hanging back, waiting. More than anything, I wished I could leave with him. I was really, really scared to get into the car with my mother.

I was in trouble like I had never known.

“Get in the car, Belly,” Steven said. “Don’t make it worse.”

“You’d better go,” Jeremiah said.

I ran over to him and hugged him tight. “I’ll call you tonight,” he whispered into my hair.

“If I’m still alive,” I whispered back.

Then I walked away from him and climbed into the backseat.

Steven started the car, his napkin a white bundle in his lap. My mother caught my eye in the rearview mirror and said, “You’re returning that ring, Isabel.”

If I backed down now, everything was lost. I had to be strong.

“I’m not returning it,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-two

My mother and I didn’t speak to each other for a week.

I avoided her, and she ignored me. I worked at Behrs, mostly to get out of the house. I ate lunch and dinner there. After my shifts, I went over to Taylor’s, and when I got home, I talked to Jeremiah on the phone. He begged me to at least try to talk to my mother. I knew he was worried that she hated him now, and I assured him that he wasn’t the one she was mad at. That was all me.

One night after a late shift at the restaurant, I was on my way to my room when I stopped short. I heard the muffled sound of my mother crying behind her closed door. I was frozen to the spot, my heart thudding in my chest. Standing outside her door, listening to her weep, I was ready to give it all up. In that moment I would have done anything, said anything, to make her stop crying.

In that moment she had me. My hand was on the doorknob, and the words were right there, on the tip of my tongue—Okay, I won’t do it.

But then it got quiet. She’d stopped crying on her own. I waited a little longer, and when I didn’t hear anything more, I let go of the doorknob and went to my room. In the dark I took off my work clothes and got into bed, and I cried too.

I woke up to the smell of my father’s Turkish coffee. For just those few seconds right in between sleep and wake-fulness, I was ten again, and my dad still lived with us and the biggest thing I had to worry about was my math homework. I started to fall asleep again, and then I woke up with a start.

There could only be one reason my dad was here. My mother had told him. I’d wanted to be the one to tell him, to explain. She’d beaten me to it. I was mad, but at the same time I felt glad. Her telling my father meant that she was finally taking this seriously.

After I showered, I headed downstairs. They were sitting in the living room drinking coffee. My dad had on his weekend clothes—jeans and a plaid short-sleeved shirt. And a belt, always a belt.

“Morning,” I said.

“Have a seat,” my mother said, setting her mug down on a coaster.

I sat. My hair was still wet, and I was trying to work my comb through the tangles.

Clearing his throat, my father said, “So, your mother told me what’s going on.”

“Dad, I wanted to tell you myself, I really did. Mom beat me to the punch.” I threw her a pointed look, and she didn’t appear the least bit bothered by it.

“I’m not in favor of this either, Belly. I think you’re too young.” He cleared his throat again. “We’ve discussed it, and if you want to live with Jeremiah in an apartment this fall, we’ll allow it. You’ll have to chip in if it costs more than the dorms, but we’ll pay what we’ve been paying.”

I wasn’t expecting that. A compromise. I was sure it had been my dad’s idea, but I couldn’t take the deal.

“Dad, I don’t just want to live in an apartment with Jeremiah. That’s not why we’re getting married.”

“Then why are you getting married?” my mother asked me.

“We love each other. We’ve thought it through, we really have.”

My mother gestured at my left hand. “Who paid for that ring? I know Jeremiah doesn’t have a job.”

I put my hand in my lap. “He used his credit card,” I said.

“His credit card that Adam pays for. If Jeremiah can’t afford a ring, he has no business buying one.”

“It didn’t cost much.” I had no idea how much the ring had cost, but the diamond was so little, I figured it couldn’t have been that expensive.

Sighing, my mother glanced over at my father and then back at me. “You might not believe me when I say this, but when your father and I got married, we were very much in love. Very, very much in love. We went into marriage with the best of intentions. But all of that just wasn’t enough to sustain us.”

Their love for each other, Steven and me, our family—none of it was enough to make their marriage work.

I knew all of that already.

“Do you regret it?” I asked her.

“Belly, it isn’t as simple as that.”

I interrupted her. “Do you regret our family? Do you regret me and Steven?”

Sighing deeply, she said, “No.”

“Dad, do you?”

“Belly, no. Of course not. That’s not what you’re mother’s trying to say.”

“Jeremiah and I aren’t you and Mom. We’ve known each other our whole lives.” I tried to appeal to my father.

“Dad, your cousin Martha got married young, and she and Bert have been married for, like, thirty years! It can work, I know it can. Jeremiah and I will make it work just like they did. We’re going to be happy. We want you guys to be happy for us.”

My father rubbed his beard in a way I knew well—he was going to defer to my mother the way he always did.

Any second, he would look at her with a question in his eyes. It was all up to her now. Actually, it had always been up to her.

We both looked at her. My mother was the judge.

That was the way it worked in our family. She closed her eyes briefly and then said, “I can’t support you in this decision, Isabel. If you go forward with this wedding, I won’t support it. I won’t be there.”

It knocked the wind out of me. Even though I was expecting it, her continued disapproval … still. Still, I thought she’d come around, at least a little.

“Mom,” I said, my voice breaking, “come on.”

Looking pained, my father said, “Belly, let’s all just think on this some more, okay? This is very sudden for us.”

I ignored him and looked only at my mother.

Pleadingly, I said, “Mom? I know you don’t mean that.”

She shook her head. “I do mean it.”

“Mom, you can’t not be at my wedding. That’s crazy.”

I tried to sound calm, like I wasn’t on the verge of out-and-out hysteria.

“No, what’s crazy is the idea of a teenager getting married.” She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know what to say to get through to you. How do I get through to you, Isabel?”

“You can’t,” I said.

My mother leaned forward, her eyes fixed on me.

“Don’t do this.”

“It’s already decided. I’m marrying Jeremiah.” I stood up jerkily. “If you can’t be happy for me, then maybe—

maybe it’s best you don’t come.”

I was already at the staircase when my dad called out,

“Belly, wait.”

I stopped, and then I heard my mother say, “Let her go.”

When I was in my room, I called Jeremiah. The first thing he said was, “Do you want me to talk to her?”

“That won’t help. I’m telling you, she’s made up her mind. I know her. She won’t budge. At least not right now.”

He was silent. “Then what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” I started to cry.

“Are you saying you want to postpone the wedding?”

“No!”

“Then what should we do?”