"Mmm. The flowers were lovely," Ford replied. He was more comfortable talking about the flowers than answering the question about his marriage, but unfortunately he didn't know if he had much to say about flowers when it came down to it. He remembered what the flowers at the wedding looked like, but he didn't know that he could conjure up the names. He'd left the actual selection to someone else — maybe just to Mrs. Grimstone herself, for all he knew.

And it wasn't as though married life was actually going that poorly, to be honest. His life generally was an absolute disaster, but it had been before Jemima had entered it, and it had not become much worse because of her. If anything she was often a welcome breath of fresh air, when he took time out of his day to go and visit with her — and it was not her fault he was spending so much time missing Tycho, after all. But Ford didn't know how to talk about his marriage and convey it's not so bad as I expected without giving the context that he had expected it to be very bad indeed.

"It's a big adjustment, for both of us," he said diplomatically. "And the circumstances could have been better. But —" he hesitated, wondering if this was too earnest for casual conversation... but it was true, and he'd been thinking it often in the weeks since his wedding day. "— I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else."

---