Page 88 of What Happens in Amsterdam

My chest tightens, everything taking far too long for me to piece together. Wouter’s mother contacted my parents. Told them about the wedding they had no idea had happened. Invited them to this party.

And now they’re here, though obviously not to celebrate—to drag me back to my senses.

“We didn’t want to do this,” my father continues. “But as soon as we heard from Wouter’s mother, we thought it might be the only way. We had to get on a plane and make sure you heard from us in person.”

With a Pilates-toned arm, my mother grips my shoulder with enough strength to tug me away from Wouter, like we’re some modern-day Jets vs. Sharks. “Was this what you planned all along? Was this why you picked Amsterdam?”

“What—no,” I say emphatically. “We only bumped into each other back in January. We hadn’t been in touch.”

Her voice turns pleading. “We’re just trying to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life. I know you were going through a rough time at home, and maybe this seems romantic…but for Christ’s sake, you can’t—you can’t just run off to Europe and getmarried.”

Then, as though she’s understood the whole conversation or at least the most important parts, Maartje declares in her accented English, “They are already married.”

Everything feels suspended in time for a long, painful moment—before the room erupts into noise.

The horror on my parents’ faces matches the confusion on Anneke’s and Roos’s as they hurl shouts and accusations, none of them having the whole truth but all of them eager to conjure their own versions of it. I shrink back against the wall. Count breaths like my life depends on it, because maybe it does. Four. Seven. Eight.Fuck, I need more numbers.

With everyone talking over one another, Wouter bends to rub my back again. “We’re going to figure this out,” he says softly, and the concern on his face is underscored with something else. A steady determination. “We’ll be okay, lief.”

I lean into his touch, wishing it could be as simple as he makes it sound. I find anchors to ground myself: the circular motion of his fingertips. My sister’s familiar clean-linen perfume. “What if wejust run away? Right now? We could catch a train to France. We’d be there in, what, three hours?”

“As tempting as that is,” he says, “I think they might notice we’re gone.”

Then my mother reaches for my hand, holding it up to inspect the wedding ring and looking as though she might faint.

“Mom. Dad,” Phoebe is saying, keeping her voice level and trying to play peacemaker. “Maybe we should all just take a moment and calm d—”

“No, I don’t think it’s time to calm down at all!” my father says. His jaw is set, arms crossed over his chest. “Tell us you aren’t married, Dani. Tell us you didn’t rush into this gigantic decision without telling anyone. Please.”

“I…” This wasn’t how they were supposed to find out. They weren’t supposed to find out at all, and that was the beauty of it. “It wasn’t rushed. We spent a lot of time talking about it,” I say feebly, though it’s not exactly true.

“You barely know him! You two were kids when he lived with us,” my mother says, and the word stings.Kids. As though nothing we did back then could be considered serious. “That was almost fifteen years ago. He might as well be a stranger!”

Anneke places a hand on Wouter’s arm. “What’s wrong with my son?”

“Nothing. I’m sure he’s grown into a fine young man,” my father says. “But our daughter doesn’t know what she’s doing. She clearly wasn’t thinking when she decided to marry some guy on the other side of the world.”

“It wasn’t just her,” Wouter says, coming to my defense, because my father makes it sound like I tripped and stumbled into marriage. Tosome guy, and not the kind and caring Dutchman who used to be our foreign exchange student. “It was both of us. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Your parents didn’t know? But I thought—” Roos’s strawberry hair whips around her face as she shakes her head, unable to process this, and George stretches up to lick her cheek.

“Roos,” I try, my heart aching. “I’m so sorry—”

“This is nonsense.” My mother whips out her phone, as though Google has a simple solution to the problem. “You’re an American citizen. Was it even legal?”

“Yes, it was entirely legal,” Wouter assures her. “I wouldn’t get Danika in any kind of trouble. Not intentionally.”

“Then there has to be a way to undo it,” my father says, and then he’s swiping through his phone too. “Oh—I’m not connected to the Wi-Fi…”

At any other time, this would endear me to my boomer father—the fact that he didn’t account for the nuances of an international phone plan when they decided to storm the castle and save their daughter.

“I was uncertain about it at first, too.” Anneke might be in the worst position of all, needing to defend her family in her own home in front of these complete strangers. The mother-in-law I thought was starting to like me. Except she was never my mother-in-law at all, was she? “They’re young—maybe they’re a little impulsive, but I trust Wouter. They rekindled their relationship, fell back in love, and then got married.”

And if that doesn’t make me feel even worse.

So I do the only thing I can think of. The one thing I’m convinced will calm my parents more than the thought of their daughter getting married without telling them.

I wave my hands frantically to try to get everyone’s attention. “No—we didn’t,” I say, and they all whirl to face me. “I mean, yes, we’re married, but only on paper. That’s all it was ever supposed to be.”

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