I stared at my hands. There was something almost frightening about hearing my better qualities described as the reasons somebody thought they could hurt me safely. I had worked to be patient, reliable, and difficult to provoke because those were the qualities I admired in my father. I had not realized Lauren was relying on them in a different way, using the assumption that I would remain available no matter what choice she made. Patience had turned, in her mind, into a guarantee of forgiveness.
Robert looked at me. "I told her she was wrong. About all of it. I told her love is not an agreement that the other person will absorb every consequence of your decisions."
"Thank you," I said.
"She's our daughter," he continued. "We'll help her face this. But we won't ask you to marry her to make today less painful for us."
Elaine began crying then, softly and without embarrassment. I passed her a tissue and looked away, giving her the same small privacy Caleb had given me the night before. Part of me wanted to ask whether Lauren had truly been sorry. Another part knew that a report from her parents would never answer the question. Remorse was not a document someone else could certify on her behalf. It would be measured by what she did when there was no ceremony left to save.
Before they left, Robert handed me a small envelope. Inside was a photograph of Lauren and me from our engagement dinner, taken by her younger cousin. We were laughing, looking away from the camera toward some joke the photographer had made. I almost returned it. Then I decided that pretending a good day had never happened would not protect me from a bad one, and I put the photograph in my bag.
"You should keep it or throw it away when you're ready," Robert said. "I just didn't want it disappearing without you knowing it existed."
After they drove off, I went upstairs and took a shower. I stood beneath the water longer than necessary, trying to imagine the day in a different version of my life. In that version I would be nervous about whether my tie matched the pocket square, whether the officiant had the correct reading, whether the ring box was where it belonged. My mother would be adjusting my jacket while Grace took unflattering photographs. I would spend the afternoon trying to memorize Lauren's face when the music began.
Instead, I put on jeans and a blue shirt that didn't require ironing. I wore my father's watch because my mother had delivered it while the Ellises were visiting. It was an old stainless-steel watch with a scratched face and a leather band that had been replaced so many times the original was almost a family myth. I wore it on the day of my first job interview, my college graduation, and the funeral of the man who gave it to me. I had intended to wear it at the wedding because it made me feel that my father would be close.