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“St. Cloud Technical & Community College for the first two years. Got my associate’s degree there. Then transferred to St. Cloud State to complete my bachelor’s. You?”

“University of Minnesota. Both undergrad and law school.”

“Are your parents lawyers?” she asks.

“No, my mom worked in retail. Dad at a factory. My brother’s in the Navy.”

“And you’re a lawyer.”

“And I'm a lawyer.”

“What kind of law do you practice?”

“Corporate,” I say. “But you won’t trick me, missy. This is your time. Why don’t you like accounting?

She smiles and traces the rim of her glass with her fingertips. “I like it fine. But it’s just not ... what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”

“How does your family feel about that?”

Liz shrugs. “I guess they don’t know.”

I’m confused, and certain my face shows it. “What do you mean?”

“They don’t know I don’t want to work for them. They don’t know the life they want for me is not what I want for myself. They don’t know how relieved I was...” She stops herself. Her face is twisted with emotion, and I feel that what she’s trying not to tell me is the most important thing she might choose to. The fact she’s even considering it means she trusts me. Without a reason, against all odds, this mesmerizing woman might be ready to trust me with something deep and hard, and I feel honored and overwhelmed and excited and scared—

It’s my turn to take her hand. “Liz, how relieved you were to do what?”

“How relieved I was that the man whom I’d dated for seven years—of which we were engaged for the last two—told me three weeks ago that he had second thoughts and that we shouldn’t get married.”

For a moment, I’m rendered speechless.

She pulls her hand out from underneath mine. “See? You’re judging me. I know you are. I judge myself, too. Who reacts like this to a broken engagement?”

I reach out and grab back the hand she pulled away. “No, no. It’s not that. I was just surprised. It was a lot of information all at once. I just needed a minute. So why were you relieved?”

She considers me somewhat warily, her chin tilted downward, eyes looking up beneath half-closed eyelids. “When he said—he being Jake, my ex-fiancé—that he’s not sure we should be getting married, that he’d been thinking about things and they just didn’t feel right, that he was sorry but it would be worse if we got married and it didn’t work out, I swear I was having an out-of-body experience. Like I was floating above the scene, watching myself watch him, as he kept on and on, and all I thought was, ‘Thank God I’m free. Thank God I’m free.’”

I clasp her hand with both of mine. “Was he... Did he hurt you?”

She waves away my concern. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Just... Between him and my parents, I would never leave St. Cloud. I would get forever stuck there, working for Dad’s shop, having Jake’s babies, living the same life my mom has lived.

“And don’t get me wrong, it’s a great life and she’s happy... But that’s not what I want. I don’t actually know what it is that I want, but it’s not that. Or at least not just that.” She pauses. “Does that make sense?”

“I think it does,” I say. “But, do you love him? Jake?”

She shrugs. “I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure anymore. Isn’t that an awful thing to say?”

“Not if that’s how you really feel.”

She takes a deep breath and leans back. “I mean, we spent so much time together. We were going to get married.”

“And now you aren’t and you’re glad. Seems like he and you are actually on the same page, which, ironically, makes you well-suited for marriage.”

She giggles and swats me lightly on my arm. I am still holding her other hand in both of mine.

“So you’re a free woman,” I say, trying to meet her eyes.

She meets mine boldly. “So I’m a free woman.”