At my Manhattan bridal fitting, his mother scanned my $14,000 gown and sneered, “White is for girls with a real family.” The salon froze. My fiancé looked down… and said nothing.

By March, the bare trees in the park had begun to look less dead and more undecided. My schedule remained relentless, which suited me. Pain shrinks in proportion to responsibility if one is sufficiently disciplined. I flew to London, then Zurich, then Singapore. I bought a manufacturing company in Germany and walked away from a consumer brand in California after the founder mistook charisma for business fundamentals. I increased our philanthropic allocation in education and revised the criteria for a scholarship program I had funded quietly for years under a foundation name no one linked to me.

At some point the tabloids lost interest in my canceled wedding and found fresher prey.

At some point I stopped checking whether Derek had called.

At some point I realized I had gone entire days without thinking of him at all.

Healing, in my experience, is less a sunrise than a long series of unnoticed evenings in which darkness arrives later than it used to.

Still, certain absences made themselves known in odd moments.