Ella threw a party. It was not a small dinner – it was a proper party. In a house she and Marcus rented in Ballard, decorated with strings of lights and champagne bottles on all surfaces, with a massive banner declaring DR. BROOKLYN MILLER in glittering letters.
Probably fifty people. Colleagues from the University, friends from the PhD program. Jayce and his fiancée Sophie, who kept telling everyone how fantastic Brooklyn was. My mother, who was staying in town for the weekend, and who was positively radiant. Members of my dissertation committee, who had come to congratulate me in person. Dr. Sif, video calling from Iceland via someone's laptop, raising a glass of champagne to toast me across the sea.
It was all too much, in the best possible way.
