Petra was thirty-one then.
Tall.
Dark blond hair cut to her shoulders.
Green-gray eyes that seemed warmer or colder depending on the lighting.
She had a kind of confidence that didn’t require volume.
She wasn’t trying to dominate the room.
She simply seemed comfortable being herself inside it.
We talked for forty minutes.
Work.
Seattle.
Architecture.
Why financial people always wore navy.
Why designers always wore black.
She told me she had been divorced for three years.
I remember the exact way she said it.
“My ex-husband is Damon Reyes. We were married four years. We’re still friendly. We just grew in different directions.”
I had no reason to question it.
No bitterness.
No dramatic cheating story.
No restraining orders.
No endless complaints about how terrible he had been.
If anything, I considered her ability to speak calmly about an ex a positive sign.
Maturity.
Emotional intelligence.
Evidence that she had processed the past instead of dragging it behind her.
My own parents had separated when I was nineteen after spending almost five years turning every room of our house into a battleground.
My father checked my mother’s phone.
My mother accused my father of affairs.
Both of them recruited me and my brother Theo into arguments we had no business being part of.
I hated jealousy.
I hated ownership disguised as love.
I hated the idea that marriage gave someone permission to police another adult.
So when Petra mentioned that she and Damon sometimes texted on birthdays or saw each other around mutual friends, I barely reacted.
“Good for you,” I said.
She laughed.
“For being divorced?”
“For being civilized.”
“Low bar.”
“You haven’t met my parents.”
That night I asked for her number.
She gave it to me.
Our first real date happened eight days later at a small Italian restaurant on Capitol Hill.
Our second was coffee that became dinner.
Our third was a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island because Petra claimed Seattle people took Puget Sound for granted.
Within four months, we were exclusive.
Within a year, we were living together.
Fourteen months after we met, I proposed on a Sunday morning at Gas Works Park.
Nothing elaborate.
No photographer hiding behind a tree.
No family waiting.
Just the two of us near the lake while Seattle was still waking up.
Petra stared at the ring for several seconds.
Then at me.
Then she laughed and cried simultaneously.
“Yes.”
We married nine months later at a vineyard on Bainbridge Island.
Forty-two guests.
No giant ballroom.
No choreographed entrance.
No six-tier cake.
Petra wore a simple ivory dress that made her look exactly like herself instead of somebody costumed as a bride.
Damon did not attend.
I didn’t even ask whether he had been invited.
I assumed he hadn’t.
We bought a townhouse in Eastlake the following year.
Three levels.
Two bedrooms.
Small office.
Rooftop deck.
Garage barely wide enough for two cars.
Four blocks from Lake Union.
On rare clear mornings, we could see Mount Rainier from the upstairs bedroom if the light was right.
Petra redesigned every room.
She replaced the dark flooring.
Opened the kitchen.
Installed custom shelves.
Changed the lighting.
Found an old walnut dining table in Ballard and had it restored.
Our house looked polished but not staged.
It felt lived in.
Warm.
Ours.
For the first two years, I honestly believed I had gotten one of the good ones.
Not one of the good women.
One of the good marriages.
There is a difference.
We fought occasionally.
Everybody does.
Petra hated that I worked late.
I hated that she left coffee cups in every room except the kitchen.
She liked spontaneous weekend plans.
I liked calendars.
She thought my brother Theo was too serious.
Theo thought Petra could turn choosing a restaurant into a ninety-minute strategic process.
None of it frightened me.
We traveled.