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prayer-interruption.
    His head finally jolts up and he looks at me.
    “All better?” I ask.
    “There is great power in letting go, Maddy,” he says.
    My brother, the Sensei. God, how I love that guy.

Chapter 12
    After Carlton gave me the Juliet ring, I expected us to announce our engagement. I practiced saying my name aloud in the bathroom mirror. “Madeline Connors,” I’d say, trying it on for size.
    But Carlton wanted to wait. And I understood why.
    He’d been married before. His “starter marriage,” he called it. She was seven years younger. A blonde bombshell. And a Mormon, of all things.
    I’d found a photograph of her once, in a shoebox Carlton kept high in the closet. Unlike my dark, Italian features, she was tall, with sumptuous blond hair running in long waves down her back. Bright blue eyes, gorgeous, supermodel smile, and dimples the size of Lake Erie. In her lap, she held a Labrador puppy.
    She was the kind of woman who looked like the perfect wife, actually. Not stubby and dark-haired and tragically ethnic like me. Not to sell myself short. I mean, I was a powerhouse on two legs, a firecracker, as they say. And I was pretty in a way, if you looked closely—but I was certainly no knockout. No one had ever suggested I be prom queen. Or a Victoria’s Secret model. In fact, men usually dated me for my “personality,” my “flair,” my “Piatro pizzazz.” But I wasn’t boring in bed, either. I knew my way around a man, let’s put it that way.
    That very night, I cooked Carlton’s favorite dinner. Herbed salmon with new potatoes and asparagus. I splurged on a bottle of Chianti that was much too expensive for my just-out-of-grad-school starting salary. And I had my nails done with French tips.
    Carlton came in from work and we sat at our makeshift “bar.” A card table with two stools I’d put in the kitchen.
    I poured his wine.
    He tasted it.
    “Fancy,” he said.
    I walked around the table and rubbed his shoulders.
    “Ahhh,” he said, as I dug my thumbs into his muscles. I took this as my cue. And asked him casually why he’d gotten a divorce.
    Carlton sat up, suddenly. I walked around the table, plopped down across from him and waited.
    “I bought Megan fake tits,” he replied, finally. “And she still wasn’t happy. She was the type of woman who’d never be happy.”
    He raised his wineglass. Clinked it against mine. “Why are you so curious all of a sudden?”
    “I thought you hated fake breasts,” I said, crossing my arms over my own chest. It’s not like I was flat as a cookie sheet or anything. But I was no double D.
    He sighed. “Hey sweetie. I just walked in the door and you’re already wearing me out.”
    So I dropped it.
    But I didn’t drop the engagement thing. I stood up and served both of us plates of salmon, new potatoes, warm French bread, and salads with blue cheese crumbles.
    We sat across from each other and ate in silence until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
    I sucked in my breath and blurted: “I don’t understand why we’re not telling anyone about our engagement.” Carlton looked up and I flashed him the Juliet ring on my ring finger.
    He rubbed his forehead, a man under pressure. “Look sweetie. I don’t want to introduce you as my fiancée to my family yet. Because you have to understand, Maddy, they’ll think I’m crazy to be engaged again. So soon after my divorce.”
    “You’ve been divorced for two years!”
    “Separated,” Carlton corrects me. “The divorce was just finalized, remember? And I don’t want my dad lecturing me about moving too quickly. He wants me to focus on work, so we can start our own company, sweetie. Don’t you want to hit the ground running? Instead of spending all our energy planning some ridiculous, over-the-top wedding?”
    “I was thinking we’d do something small,” I say. “Intimate.”
    Carlton rolls his eyes. “Please. With my family. As-if,” he huffs. “I mean, my dad’ll have to invite