Before She Goes
By Katie Brown
It takes a long time for Eliza Ryder to become Eliza Banks.
It takes a long time to become accustomed to a different last name, the last remnants of her childhood slipping away as soon as she utters “I do.” It was peculiar, she later thinks, that her first thought as George slipped the ring onto her finger was of Callie—that she saw her old friend as vividly as if they were standing beside each other, rain-drenched hair, bright eyes full of recklessness and excitement and so very, very different from George. Imagining that girl before her on the altar she allowed her husband a chaste kiss and buried those memories beneath the folds of her wedding dress, silenced them with the soft applause of the congregation. “Mrs. Banks,” George whispered in her ear, and
