Caleb knocked softly after hearing me move around. I told him he could come in. He sat on the floor beside the bed, leaning against the wall, and said nothing for almost ten minutes. I couldn't have explained why that helped more than a speech. When I finally looked up, he asked whether I wanted him to take my phone for the night. I said yes, and he set it on the dresser at the far end of the room.
"Did she apologize?" he asked.
I thought about it. "She apologized for what happened after she found out I cancelled everything. She didn't really apologize for deciding to do it."
He nodded. "That difference is probably worth paying attention to."
At some point after one in the morning, I slept. It was shallow and interrupted by dreams of standing in the greenhouse with no guests, listening to chairs scrape across the floor while Lauren searched the rows for somebody she recognized. I woke shortly before six, surprised by the fact that daylight still came through the curtains on the morning of what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. For a few seconds I forgot where I was. Then I saw the suitcase beneath the window and remembered everything at once.
Priya had left a clean shirt and a towel outside the guest-room door. In the kitchen, Caleb was making pancakes while Grace sat with her laptop open. My mother had already called and said she would bring my father's old watch, which I had planned to wear at the ceremony. She wasn't going to ask whether I wanted it; she said she thought it might comfort me to have something familiar nearby. I told her to come whenever she wanted.
Rachel sent her final morning update at 7:05. The ceremony was officially cancelled. The hotel had released unused rooms from the block where its cancellation policy allowed, the florist would repurpose what she could, and the catering company had arranged a donation of safe, unserved ingredients through an established local partner. The venue's policy prevented us from transferring the reserved hall to a public event on such short notice. I was relieved. I did not want my ruined wedding repackaged as a gesture that everybody else was expected to applaud.
Grace read the vendor update over my shoulder. "You don't have to turn this into something inspiring," she said.
"I know."
"I mean it. You can have a terrible Saturday. You're allowed."
I took a pancake from Caleb's plate and ate it with no appetite. The syrup tasted too sweet. Around me, three people who loved me were discussing the practical details of a wedding that no longer existed, and I began to understand that grief can be held by other people in small, ordinary ways. A ride to the venue to collect personal belongings. A phone call to an elderly relative. A clean shirt left outside a door.