"She's in the kitchen. Hold on."
I heard the phone change hands, Elaine asking if we needed help with the rehearsal flowers. I swallowed and told them I was cancelling the wedding. Robert thought at first that something had happened at the venue, and Elaine asked if I needed a doctor. I told them Lauren had said she intended to spend the night with Alex before marrying me, that she expected me to accept it, and that I could not proceed.
Elaine said nothing for so long that I wondered whether the call had dropped. Robert finally spoke, his voice careful. "Are you telling me she's with Alex right now?"
"She left with an overnight bag. That's what she told me she was doing. I don't know where she is, and I haven't tried to find her."
"Did she say you agreed?" Elaine asked.
I looked at Caleb, then back at the dashboard. "She may say that. I said 'okay' and walked out because I needed to leave before I said something cruel. Afterward I asked her in writing to confirm exactly what she intended. She confirmed it. But I never agreed to marry her after that."
Robert let out a breath. "I wish you'd called us before cancelling everything."
I understood why he said it. The wedding was a day both families had saved for and anticipated; his younger relatives were already flying in, and his mother had purchased a blue dress she had shown me three separate times. But the suggestion that a committee of relatives could discuss whether I should tolerate what had happened made my chest tighten. I had spent the last hour trying to hold on to clarity. I wasn't willing to hand that decision over because other people had paid deposits too.
"I respect both of you," I said. "And I know this hurts you. But I don't need anyone's permission not to get married."
Elaine answered before Robert could. "No, you don't. I'm sorry, Ethan. I don't know what to say."
"Please talk to Lauren before you make assumptions about what she meant. I can forward her message if you want it. I don't want this to become a contest where everyone chooses a version of the truth."
"Send it to me," Elaine said quietly. "And don't worry about notifying our relatives. We'll take care of that."
I sent her the exchange after we hung up. For a while, neither Caleb nor I spoke. We could hear the building's ventilation unit cycling in the garage and a distant engine starting above us. The air had a faint smell of concrete dust and gasoline, a smell I had never associated with grief until that night. My phone continued lighting up with replies from vendors, each one treating my future as a reservation to be changed.
I met Lauren three years and four months earlier at a literacy fundraiser organized by the nonprofit where she worked. A colleague had invited me because our engineering firm had donated money for a new community reading room, and I attended mostly because free dinner came with the donation. Lauren