On Saturday morning, Ruth asked whether I wanted to come with her for the unused food.
“Bea says there are things in the fridge we can use,” she said. “And flowers, if you want some.”
I'd left my toothbrush in Mother's bathroom and was using a spare Ruth had found in her cupboard. My trainers were still under my old bed too. Small things. I could leave them, but I wanted to finish taking what was mine.
“I'll come,” I said.
The weather was exactly what Mother had wanted. Warm, dry, no wind to lift the tablecloths. I looked at the blue sky through the car window and felt absurdly angry with it.
At the house, the gate stood open. Nate was carrying a folded table toward a hired van. He set it down when he saw us.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” Ruth said.
I nodded. He didn't ask how I'd slept.
“The rental people are taking the chairs back today,” he said. “I've told everyone I invited not to come for the ceremony.”
“Good,” Ruth said.
He went back to the table.
Bea met us in the hall. She wore a loose shirt, jeans and old trainers with one lace shorter than the other. Her dress was upstairs in its cover. I knew it was there, though I couldn't see it.
“I've put the food together,” she said. “Mum wants the dishes back.”
“They are my dishes,” Ruth said.
Bea blinked, then laughed a little. “Right. Yes.”
“I'll bring back any that aren't.”
I pointed toward the stairs. “I've forgotten two things.”
“Go ahead.”
In my old room, the bedspread was straightened. I knelt, took my trainers from under the bed and put them in a bag Bea had left on the dressing table. My toothbrush was where I'd stood it in the bathroom mug.
I didn't look for anything else.
When I came down, Bea was carrying a cardboard box of food containers toward Ruth's car. I held the front door open for her.
“Have you sorted everybody?” I asked.
“The messages and calls, yes. Anyone who hasn't answered has another message. Nate's done his people.”
“Okay.”
She stopped beside the car and rested the box on the wall.
“We won't get the deposits back,” she said. “I knew that when I cancelled.”
I waited.
“I've got some things I can cover. Nate's dealing with his arrangements. We'll sort the rest. You don't need to do anything.”
“I wasn't going to offer.”
She nodded. “I know.”
There wasn't anything else to say about the bills. I helped her lift the box into the boot.
Mother appeared in the doorway.
“Don't crush the flowers,” she told Ruth. “Some of those are expensive.”
Ruth was holding several bunches together, trying to fit the stems into a bucket.
“We're not crushing them,” she said. “We're giving them somewhere to go.”
Mother looked at me. “Are you coming in for tea?”
“No.”
“You can't keep behaving like this.”
Bea went back up the path. “She's collecting her things, Mum.”
Mother's mouth tightened. She went inside without answering.
Ruth gave me a bunch of flowers to hold on the drive. There were roses, greenery and some tiny white flowers that caught on my sleeve. I took the passenger seat and tried to arrange them so I could still see out of the window.
Nate shut the van doors. Bea told him she was going back to her flat once the rental people had finished.
“I'll go to mine,” he said. “Call if you need the last box moved.”
She nodded. They stayed on opposite sides of the van.
Ruth started the car. I held the flowers steady while we went over the little bump at the end of the road.
At her house, she searched for a vase tall enough for all of them.
“We could use two,” I said.
“I want to see if they'll fit.”
This was not a sensible ambition. The bouquet had become taller than the kettle, wider than the little shelf and far too dramatic for Ruth's kitchen.
She put the stems in her largest vase. It leaned.
I caught it.
“It's trying to leave,” I said.
Ruth held the base. “It can't. I've already carried it home.”
We moved some stems. A rose sprang sideways and poked Ruth in the chin. She looked at me over the white flowers.
“Well, this is personal.”
I laughed. Properly, with my hands still around the vase.
She laughed too. For a minute neither of us could rearrange anything without making it worse.
In the end we used three containers, which was what we should have done at the start. One went on the kitchen table. The others went to the hall and the little front room.
We unpacked the food and found room in the fridge. Then Ruth made sandwiches with some of it, and we ate at her table with a rose leaning between us.
At the time Bea had once asked me to stand beside her with the bouquet, I was wearing socks in Ruth's kitchen, trying to keep mayonnaise off a borrowed book.
It wasn't the day I'd wanted. But I was hungry, the food was good, and when the rose slid toward my plate I moved it back.