Cherry recalls a memory from her childhood involving one of her mother's regular tarot customers—a young, beautifully dressed woman excitedly planning her wedding. The woman was sweet and chatty, always showing off her engagement ring and sharing details about her dress and bouquets. She mentioned that due to "the marriage bar," she would have to give up her public service job after the wedding.

Cherry became so caught up in the excitement that her mother took her to the church to watch the ceremony, which was Cherry's first wedding. She was overwhelmed by the romance of it. After the wedding, the woman stopped coming for readings, and Cherry forgot about her—until about a year later, when she spotted the woman at the shops. The bride was nearly unrecognizable: drab, slumped, wearing an ill-fitting cardigan, and unwilling to talk. Cherry wondered whether marriage or the loss of her career had changed her so drastically.

Three years after the wedding, the woman died in a house fire. Her husband survived and was never charged with her murder, but Cherry overheard adults speculating about his guilt. When Cherry confronted her mother, asking whether she had foreseen the danger and warned the woman not to marry him, her mother replied that she couldn't make anyone do anything and didn't always get it right. Cherry believes her mother did not foresee the woman's fate, and reflects that no one at that beautiful wedding could have seen it coming.