“I do.”
“No. I want you to really understand it.”
He waited.
“And then I want you to decide whether you are capable of being married to me.”
“I love you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence.
“Marriage isn’t only loving someone, Felix. It’s choosing the marriage when pressure comes.”
“Choosing you over my mother.”
“That is not what I said.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. I’m not asking you to abandon your mother. I’m asking whether you can protect your marriage when someone outside it pressures you.”
He took a long breath.
“I don’t know.”
That answer, strangely, was the first honest one I had heard from him in a long time.
“I thought I could,” he continued. “Clearly, I couldn’t.”
“Then figure it out.”
“Are you filing for divorce?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know who you are when your mother’s voice isn’t telling you who to be.”
