At supper, Nate sat beside Bea.
I sat opposite them, which gave me nowhere useful to look. Mother had put chicken in a dish with lemon slices. She asked me about work, then interrupted the answer to ask Nate whether he'd checked the weather for Saturday.
“Still dry,” he said.
“These forecasts change every hour.”
“I'll try to stop that.”
Bea smiled down at her plate.
He passed her the pepper without being asked. I ate a mouthful of chicken and wished he had developed an unpleasant laugh or started talking with food in his mouth. Something that would help.
“Lucy,” Mother said. “Did you hear me?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Your dress. Bea says it's navy.”
“It is.”
“I thought we agreed on something lighter.”
“I agreed to wear a dress.”
Bea put her fork down. “The navy's lovely. I helped her choose it.”
“I'm sure it is. I only want to see how it looks with the flowers.”
“Then we can hold some next to it tomorrow,” Bea said, and picked up her fork again.
I loved her for the small rescue. I hated needing one at eighteen, but I loved her anyway.
After supper I took my case upstairs. My old room had a new white bedspread, and Mother had removed the postcards I'd stuck beside the mirror. The marks from the tape were still there.
I set the case on the bed and found the dress. I hung it on the wardrobe door so nobody could accuse me of hiding it. Then I went to the bathroom, washed the smell of chicken and flower water off my hands, and came back to wait for Bea.
I could hear her downstairs, arguing gently with Mother about whether the glasses really needed polishing again. She had promised to come up when the kitchen was done. I wanted to meet her here, with the door shut, and tell her exactly what had happened between me and the man she was marrying.
My phone lit up on the bed.
Nate's name was on the screen.
I had never deleted his number. I hadn't called it again either. For a while, two years ago, deleting it had felt like agreeing that it was over. Later I'd stopped looking at it and never bothered.
Now there was a message beneath it.
Please don't tell her. You don't know why I'm here.
A second message appeared.
Your mum sent me that message two years ago. Not you.
I read them twice.
Then I picked up the phone and went downstairs.
The kitchen light was on. Mother had gone into the front room. Bea was in the downstairs bathroom; I could hear the tap through the wall. Nate stood at the back door with his car keys in one hand and his phone in the other.
He looked up when I stepped into the kitchen.
“Lucy—”
I held out the screen.
“You do know me, then.”
He put his keys on the counter.
“Yes.”
“Why did you say that?”
“Bea wanted to introduce us privately. Explain things herself.”
“You said it was nice to meet me.”
“I know.”
“That was a lie.”
“Yes.”
He was looking at me now. Properly. I had spent all afternoon wanting that, and it didn't feel good when it happened.
“And now you want me to lie to my sister.”
“I'm not asking you to hide our summer,” he said. “There's something Bea wanted to explain herself.”
“What?”
He looked toward the hall, then back at me. “About your mum. Let me speak to Bea before you tell her I've told you. That's what I meant.”
“Why does she get a warning?”
“I promised she'd be the one to explain.”
“I'm the one who doesn't know what happened.”
My voice was louder than I meant it to be. I glanced at the hall, then stepped outside through the open back door. He stayed inside until I said, “Come here.”
The paving stones were still warm through my thin slippers. We stood on opposite sides of the doorstep. Behind him, the flowers filled the kitchen, ready for Saturday.
“You sent me a goodbye,” I said. “Then you wouldn't answer my call. Mum told me you'd called her and said it was over. If there's some better version of that, say it.”
His forehead creased.
“I didn't call your mum.”
“She said you did.”
“I didn't.”
I stared at him.
He shook his head. “I got a message from your phone. I thought it was you. I thought you wanted me gone.”
“I never told you to go.”
“I know that now.”
“What do you mean, now?”
“Your mum sent it. You didn't.”
I heard the bathroom door open inside. Bea's footsteps went through the hall toward the stairs. I should have called her. Instead I caught the edge of the door with my hand.
“What message?”
“It said you didn't want me. That you'd been using me for attention.”
“No.”
“I believed it, Lucy.”
“You believed I would say that?”
He looked down. “I was hurt. And angry. I answered it, blocked your number and left when my placement finished.”
I had expected excuses. Hearing the blunt answer made me feel sixteen for a horrible second, standing at the stairs with a phone that wouldn't connect.
“Why didn't you ask me?”
“I should have.”
“Yes, you should.”
I turned my phone over in my hand. Its case had a split near the corner. It was a different phone from the one I'd used that summer, but I could still remember the old screen, the words appearing while I got ready to meet him.
“How do you know it was Mum?” I asked.
“Bea told me she did it.”
“Bea knows?”
“She knows about the message. You need to talk to her.”
“That's what I was going to do. Before you asked me not to.”
He rubbed his hand over his mouth.
“I sent that badly.”
“It wasn't a spelling mistake.”
“No.” He glanced toward the staircase. “Let me talk to her first. Please. Tonight. You can ask her anything in the morning.”
“Why wait until morning?”
He took a breath. “Because I'm frightened of what this does to us. Me and Bea.”
“I'm frightened too,” I said. “She is my sister.”
“I know.”
“I won't pretend we didn't happen. And I won't keep this from her.”
“I'm not asking for forever.”
“You're asking for tonight. I've already promised to talk to her tonight.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then let me go up now. Tell her I've spoken to you.”
I looked through the kitchen toward the hall. Bea had offered me toast, taken my side over the dress and held my hand among the flowers. I wanted to speak to that sister. I wanted her to have a chance to tell me something difficult without me having to drag it out of her in front of Mother.
“Go,” I said. “Then I'm coming in. If she wants until breakfast, she can ask me herself.”
“Okay.”
“And I want to see that message.”
“It's on my old phone. At my place. I kept it in a drawer when I changed phones.”
“Bring it.”
“Before breakfast. I'll bring it.”
He picked his keys up from the counter, then put them down again. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something else. He didn't try to touch me.
“I'm sorry I pretended today,” he said.
“You can stop doing it.”
He went into the hall.
I stayed at the back door, breathing the cooler air. Two years of trying not to remember him had suddenly become a story I didn't understand. Mother had lied about a call. He said a message had come from my phone. Bea knew something I didn't.
I wanted to believe him. That was the part I didn't trust. I had wanted a different ending to our summer for so long that he could have handed me almost any one, and I might have taken it.
I shut the door and went upstairs.
Bea's bedroom door was open a few inches. I saw Nate standing beside her bed. She was sitting on it, her hands together between her knees. He spoke quietly. She looked up at him, then toward the doorway, and he turned enough to block my view.
I couldn't hear their words. I didn't know what she was telling him, or what he was admitting to her.
But he had gone to her, as he said he would.
I waited outside my own room with my phone in my hand. I had come home to help my sister get married.
Now I was waiting to tell her that I had loved her groom first.