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promising herself to do for weeks, what she swore to do last night. If only she had told Kit.
    With the trip in motion, telling him will be even more complicated, because what if it changes everything? Before this moment, they could at least have canceled their trip if he freaked out, avoided the embarrassment of arriving in Michigan and then not getting married. She will have to tell him on the plane and hope for the best, breaking the news that his intended wife is a drunk—a reformed one but a drunk nonetheless. That’s putting it melodramatically, of course, and she despises melodrama, which is perhaps why she has avoided speaking of it all this time.
    The right moment to bring it up just never seemed to come. She couldn’t tell him right off, when they met in a Cold Spring café a year and a half ago, or when they went on their first date, or even their second. It was too early then, and then suddenly it was toolate. By the time he moved in with her six months later, he had asked her so many questions—he was inquisitive, after all—and they had talked about so many things, it seemed like he must know everything about her. When he proposed marriage on a hike up Storm King Mountain, Leanne looked down on Cold Spring, its steepled church and clapboard houses nestled between hills and river like a model of a town, and thought, What is there to tell? It’s not important.
    But it is important, and as they have thundered down the track toward the wedding, she has felt guilty and anxious, as if she was purposefully deceiving Kit. Because her past has an effect on their future together. On Mexico. Kit has received a grant to go to Mexico City and make a documentary about street kids, and he wants Leanne to go with him. But she can’t. Somehow she knows that if she ends up in Mexico City, her carefully cultivated life of restraint and respectability will fall apart, and Kit will see her for what she really is: a lost cause.
    The engines wind up and the plane bounces twice before moving forward ten feet. Once they get to Michigan, it will be impossible to talk. Leanne leans back and stares at the window across the aisle. Her heart clamps down on a cold, dull sensation: regret. What led her to say yes to this? She has never had a strong desire to be married. In truth, the thought alarms her. Kit is great, and they really enjoy being together, but a husband? She looks at his arm, taking up all of the armrest. He has a mole on his wrist, and she never noticed before that it has three or four very light hairs growing out of it. She stares at them, outlined in the glow of his reading light. There are probably a million things like that she doesn’t know. She has no idea what’s going on in his head, whether he has secrets, too. Suddenly, the whole idea of marriage seems ludicrous, just a way of pretending to be together when people are actually alone.
    The arm moves from the armrest, and Kit’s hand drops onto her leg. His fingers burrow toward her inner thigh.
    “We’re going to have a good time,” he says. Leanne looks up athis face. It’s a young, open face, but little knowing crinkles radiate out from his eyes. He has blond hair. Of the Gruens, only Trevor, Margaret’s little boy, is blond, and his hair will no doubt darken to the family’s signature brown.
    “A good time getting married?” she says. “It seems like a big hassle to me.”
    “ Being married,” he says. “Although that might be a hassle sometimes, too.”
    Leanne puts her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. He wants to be married to her when he doesn’t even know her, just as he’s sure he can make his documentary when he hasn’t met any of the subjects yet. His Spanish is great, and he’s been to Mexico City before, but still. Part of her can’t help but suspect his certainty, his ability to be so positive about things, like Margaret, or their father. It’s not Leanne’s nature. Maybe she and Kit are a bad match.
    It’s nice