I nodded and followed him outside. The afternoon was bright and warm, and somewhere in the garden a worker was watering flower beds. I wondered whether the employee knew a wedding had been cancelled that morning. Probably. Perhaps she'd heard there was a family emergency or a private change of plans. I was grateful that the world was large enough to contain people for whom my worst day was simply a change on a work schedule.
On the drive back, a message arrived from Alex. He wrote that I had crossed a line by involving Nora and that whatever happened between him and Lauren was none of my business. The audacity was so complete that I nearly laughed. Caleb asked whether I wanted him to read the message aloud, and I shook my head. There was no reason for my best friend to become another person forced to endure Alex's version of events.
I replied once. "Lauren told me she intended to sleep with you before marrying me. Nora deserved to know the information that affected her marriage. I did not threaten you, contact your employer, or publish your private life. Do not contact me again."
Alex answered with three messages in quick succession, each one less coherent than the last. The first accused me of trying to ruin his marriage. The second said Lauren had been confused and I should not hold her responsible. The third suggested that if I wanted to be a good man I would stop escalating. I saved the messages with the rest of the records and blocked his number. My responsibility to him was finished.
At four-thirty, the hour the ceremony was meant to begin, I was sitting on Caleb's back steps with a glass of iced tea. The sky was clear. A lawn mower hummed in a neighboring yard, and a little wind moved the leaves of the maple behind the fence. My mother sat inside with Priya, looking through the receipts Rachel had sent. Grace was making a list of relatives who needed help changing travel plans. Nobody had dressed up, and nobody was waiting for a minister to tell us what came next.
I checked the time on my father's watch. The second hand moved past the twelve, and I felt a grief that was different from the one I had felt during the night. Then I had been reacting to the betrayal. Now I was mourning the life I would not live. The children we had discussed, the house with a small vegetable garden, the future anniversaries, the habit of reaching for somebody in the dark and knowing she was on my side. None of those things had existed yet, but I had loved them as though they were already part of me.
I began crying again, and this time I didn't hide. Caleb opened the back door, saw me, and sat on the step above mine. He didn't offer a joke or tell me I would meet someone better. He let the minute pass. After a while he said he had never seen me look at anybody the way I looked at Lauren during the first year we dated, and he was sorry that memory had become complicated.