She was quiet for a moment. "Ethan, I know how much work you put into this. I'm sorry."
"Please don't make it public before our families know."
"Of course," she said. "I'll send you a vendor status sheet in the next hour. Some charges will be nonrefundable. I'll try to recover everything I'm permitted to recover, but I won't promise what I can't deliver."
When I ended the call, Caleb opened a note on his phone and began making a list. The venue was called Arbor Ridge Conservatory, a renovated greenhouse forty minutes outside Chicago, with a glass ceremony hall and an outdoor terrace bordered by maple trees. We had chosen it in February because Lauren said she wanted something that felt alive rather than formal. The guest list held one hundred and twenty-six names. My mother had helped us address every invitation, and Lauren's father had quietly paid the difference when we decided to upgrade the dinner menu so her grandparents could enjoy their favorite dishes.
The wedding was scheduled for four-thirty on Saturday afternoon. We had planned a small rehearsal the evening before, then dinner with our immediate families and the wedding party. Even the rehearsal had become complicated because Lauren insisted her college friends needed extra time for a separate gathering. I had moved the dinner reservations and apologized to the restaurant, telling myself that she was anxious, excited, and entitled to one last evening with people she loved. Looking back now, I realized how many of our arrangements had been quietly organized around giving her that particular Friday night free.
I called the venue coordinator next. She confirmed that the hall would remain reserved under the contract and that most of the remaining fees were already due regardless of whether guests arrived. She could prevent setup from beginning at dawn, stop the rental furniture delivery, and notify their kitchen before it prepared the final meal. The photographer and band had separate agreements, so Rachel would contact them directly. I wrote every answer into a notebook because I needed my hands to have something precise to do.
"Can the food go somewhere useful?" I asked, surprised by the question as soon as it left my mouth.
The coordinator paused. "Some ingredients haven't been prepared yet. Our caterer works with a local community kitchen when donations meet handling requirements. I can ask whether that's possible, but it's their decision."
"Please ask. I don't want anyone getting sick because I wanted to make myself feel better."
"I understand," she said. "I'll be careful."
The next call was harder. My mother, Diane, was sixty-two, practical, and almost impossible to surprise. She had raised my younger sister Grace and me with a combination of stubborn optimism and excellent recordkeeping. When my father died from a heart attack eight years earlier, she had handled the funeral arrangements with the same quiet attention she used to balance the accounts at the small public library where she worked. I had inherited that habit from her: when something terrible happened, I looked first for the next necessary action.