It was just a few days before the wedding that I found out the condo, the one prepared to be our home after we got married, was actually in my sister-in-law’s name. In secret, I initiated the legal process to pull back the money I had contributed to the purchase of the place and cancelled the wedding, much to the shock of my fiancé’s entire family.

My fiancé, Brian, panicked and called me hundreds of times.

I still clearly remember that afternoon, the afternoon that shattered all the beautiful illusions of our four years of dating. They broke into a thousand pieces like a crystal glass dropping onto a stone floor. I was sitting in a small coffee shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Outside, the sun was still shining with that intense glare that sometimes bathes New York City. The afternoon light slanted through the large glass window, wrapping the surface of the table in a pale yellow beam.

In front of me was a vanilla latte that had already gone cold. Beside it, a cream colored bag containing a photocopy.

With a single glance at it, my heart froze over. It was a copy of the property deed record for the condo, the condo that Brian and his mother had always called our future palace. In the owner information section, the name that appeared was not mine nor Brian’s, but Lauren Sullivan, his younger sister.

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