The honeymoon was good. The thank-you notes are killing me.

Aunt Patricia sent the Le Creuset Dutch oven. The blue one. I have to write her a note that doesn't sound like every other note, and I keep starting and stopping, because the note has to mean it, and what I want to say is thank you, the kitchen is small but the Dutch oven is the most adult thing we own, please come visit and I will make you cassoulet from the cookbook even though I have never made cassoulet, and that's not what you put on a card.

Jake makes fun of me. He's writing his notes from his desk by the window. He does five at a time, all variations of Dear So-and-so, Sybrina and I were thrilled to receive your generous gift. We look forward to using it in our new home. Five at a time. Like a fax machine.

I have twelve done. He has eighty-seven.

I am the slower of us. I keep trying to make each one specific. I want Aunt Patricia to know that the Dutch oven is going to live on the open shelf above the stove because I love how the blue looks against the white tile. I want Cousin Robbie to know that the salad bowls are perfect and we will have him over when we have figured out how to use the oven, which is faulty in a way the realtor did not mention. I want my college roommate, who sent the cheese board, to know that the cheese board is the first thing I unpacked, and that I have already used it twice, once for a normal cheese plate and once just for crackers because I was hungry and the cheese board was the only clean dish.

Jake says nobody reads the notes. He says they read the first line and put them in a drawer.

He is probably right. He is right about most logistical things. But I want the notes to be the way I do this part of being a wife — the small careful thing that is mine, the proof that I'm doing it well.

I'm twenty-four.

I look at my hand sometimes when I'm at the desk and the ring catches the light and I think that's a wife's hand now, and the thought is small and pleased and entirely sincere. I have wanted this for a long time. I wanted to be done with the dating part. I wanted to be done with the questions. I wanted to be a person who had a husband and a name and a place to come home to and a way to introduce myself at parties — I'm Sybrina, my husband and I just moved to Hoboken, he's at Hart Commercial and I'm a consultant at Sterling. The sentence makes me feel like a person.

The condo is small. Eight hundred square feet. The bedroom barely fits the bed. The kitchen is a galley with two feet of counter space, and Jake's parents gifted us a KitchenAid stand mixer that takes up nearly all of it. I move the mixer onto the floor when I am cooking. I put it back on the counter when I am done. This is the system. Jake thinks it's ridiculous. I think it's funny.

The thank-you note for the KitchenAid is going to be the longest one I write.

Tonight I'm making chicken thighs from the Ina Garten book. There is a recipe with shallots and white wine and lemons that I have been thinking about since we were on the cruise.

Jake puts on a Bruce Springsteen record. He likes a record on when I cook. He sits on the stool by the counter — there's room for one stool and he is in it — and he tells me about his day at Hart Commercial. He learned how to read a rent roll today. He explains the math to me. He is good at the math. He says the senior broker told him he had a natural instinct, and his face is pleased when he says it, and I tell him I'm proud of him because I am.

He doesn't ask about my day. I tell him anyway. I tell him Sterling assigned me to a small healthcare engagement, junior research support, and the lead consultant has a reputation for being hard on women, and Jake says don't let her push you around and I say I won't, and we move on.

I think — and I would say this out loud if I knew how — that I would like him to ask. To say what's the engagement about? and listen to the answer. But he doesn't, and I don't ask him to, and the chicken is browning and the kitchen smells like shallots and the record skips on the third song the way it always does and Jake reaches over to nudge the needle.

This is what being married is. I know that because everyone I know who is married says some version of you stop talking about everything and you start talking about the things that matter, and what matters is logistics, and what doesn't matter is the small interior weather. That's fine. That's grown-up. I am grown-up now. I have a Dutch oven and a husband and a small kitchen with a man on the stool and a Springsteen record skipping the way it always does.

I plate the chicken. He puts the record back in its sleeve. We sit at the table for two against the wall.

He says this is good, babe.

I say thanks, babe.

We eat.

Later, in bed, he turns toward me and I turn toward him and the part that is supposed to happen happens, and he falls asleep with his hand on my hip, and I lie awake for a while and listen to the radiator click and look at the ceiling and think about Aunt Patricia's note.

Dear Aunt Patricia. Thank you so much for the Le Creuset. The kitchen is small but the Dutch oven is the best thing we own. I'm going to make cassoulet for you the first time you visit, and I have never made cassoulet before, but I will figure it out. The cookbook says it takes two days. I have two days. I have all the time in the world.

That's the note I want to write.

In the morning I will write something shorter.