Adam said yes.
Mary looked at the place where his fork lay beside the plate. Its handle pointed towards her. She concentrated on that small thing until she could ask the next question.
“Why?”
“I wanted to meet you.”
“Why me?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. She had asked this before. She wouldn't accept a conversation about a map again.
“I wanted you to help me get her back,” he said.
Ruth made a sound, sharp and disbelieving.
Mary turned towards her, then back to Adam. For a moment she couldn't make the words join up with the man sitting there.
“What?”
“I thought if you knew me, if you liked me, you might help her see that it didn't have to be something she kept hidden.”
“You wanted me to talk to my mother about you.”
“Yes.”
“As what?”
He looked at Ruth. “As someone she'd been with. Someone who still wanted her.”
Mary put a hand against the edge of the table. She had been wondering if he'd wanted to hurt Ruth by taking her daughter. This was worse in a way she hadn't prepared for. She hadn't been chosen to make her mother lose. She had been approached as the person who might help him win her mother back.
“You were going to tell me?”
“That was what I thought I'd do. Get to know you. Explain. Ask if you could help.”
“After you got me to like you.”
“Yes.”
Ruth pushed her chair back. “Adam, I didn't say I would reconsider.”
“I know.”
“I told you it was over.”
“You said you didn't know how to explain us to Mary.”
“That wasn't the only reason.”
Mary looked between them. They were finding an old argument at her table, one she had never been invited into until she became the means of resolving it.
“Stop,” she said.
They stopped.
Ruth turned towards her. “I didn't know he meant to do that.”
Mary believed she was shocked. It didn't give back what she'd already known and concealed.
“You knew who he was,” Mary said. “That was enough to tell me.”
Her mother sat down again.
Mary looked at Adam. The professional request was still exactly what he'd said. He had liked her map. He had wanted to work with her. Her opinion might count for something with the woman who mattered to him then.
“I asked you for a date.”
He nodded.
“I said it was a date. I made sure you understood.”
“I understood.”
“And you were still hoping for her?”
He looked at Ruth, then away. “Yes.”
Mary stood up. The chair scraped loudly. She didn't leave; she needed to be able to move.
“How could you say yes?”
“I wanted to.”
“That's not an answer.”
“I liked you. I was attracted to you. I hadn't expected that. I still hadn't let go of wanting things to change with Ruth.”
Mary walked to the counter and rested her hand on it. She could see herself at the pottery table, laughing at the hole she'd made, telling him about the life she wanted. She had made it easy for him to know her. She hadn't been ashamed of wanting a marriage.
“Were you going to ask me after coffee? After you'd kissed me?”
“I didn't have a plan for that anymore.”
“You had two things you wanted.”
“For a little while. Yes.”
She turned round. “And I thought there was one.”
He looked at her with so much hurt that she almost went to him. Her body still knew how to close the distance. She hated that the wish had survived his answer.
“I didn't ask you to speak to her,” he said.
“Because you didn't need me anymore?”
“Because I wanted you. I stopped trying to get back to her.”
Ruth had both hands around her glass. Mary didn't look at her. She needed to finish hearing him without her mother filling the gaps.
“When?”
“By the evening of your rehearsal. I still thought going to the gathering might give me a chance to speak to Ruth alone. Not because she'd promised anything. She hadn't. I kept thinking if I could say it properly, maybe she'd listen.”
“You already had the invitation.”
“From March. Yes. It was a work invitation. I made it more in my head.”
Mary could remember him in the dark shirt, looking at June's message. She'd told him to go. He'd said he could stay.
“Then you stayed with me.”
“I wanted to. You were worried about the meeting, and you were trying so hard to make me useful when I wasn't. I liked being there. Even the bits when we were both tired and annoyed.”
He gave a small, miserable smile. She couldn't answer it.
“I knew I didn't want to leave you to go and make that appeal. Afterwards I stopped looking for another chance.”
“But you didn't tell me.”
“No.”
“You proposed.”
“I wanted to marry you.”
She could believe that. The room was full of truths that didn't cancel each other. He had wanted Ruth. He had approached Mary because she was Ruth's daughter. He had wanted Mary's kiss, and later wanted her life with his. He had kept choosing not to tell her what her own beginning meant.
“You let me think it was just us,” she said.
“I know.”
“When I asked who she was, you knew I might talk to Mum. That's what you didn't want.”
“Yes.”
Ruth looked up. Mary kept her eyes on him.
“And I asked again before I paid. You sat beside me.”
“I should have told you.”
“You could have. Both of you telling me what I could do, while keeping the one thing I didn't know how to ask.”
Her voice broke. She stopped speaking until she could draw a whole breath.
Adam rose, then stayed on his side of the table.
“We can cancel the wedding,” he said. “We don't have to stop being together. We can take all the time you need.”
Mary closed her eyes.
There it was. The future she could still keep if she could separate it from the day. No ceremony now. No dress. But his name appearing on her phone, his hand reaching for hers in a dark cinema, another breakfast with him trying to make the bed round her.
She could go home with him and let him hold her while she cried. She wanted that with a force that made every answer she'd given Nina and June feel thin.
“I'll repay what you've lost,” he said. “The deposit. Anything.”
She opened her eyes. He wasn't offering money instead of love. He was offering everything he could think of that would leave a way for her to stay.
“I believe you want me now,” she said.
His face changed, hope arriving before she had finished.
“Mary.”
“I do. That's why this hurts.”
She took a breath. Her fingers were cold around the ring. She hadn't realised she'd been touching it.
“I can't go home with you and keep wondering what else I didn't ask.”
He lowered his head.
Mary pulled the ring off. It came more easily than she expected. She put it beside her plate, where he could reach it without coming close.
“I don't want to marry you,” she said. Then, because the slower offer was still there, tempting her, “And I can't keep seeing you.”
He looked up. He didn't ask again.
Ruth stood. “Darling, don't leave like this.”
Mary walked to the doorway. “I can't stay in this room.”
She found her coat on the hook. Her mother's hand touched her sleeve, and for one second she wanted to turn and fall into the comfort she'd always found there. Then she remembered Ruth telling her there hadn't been anything behind her back.
She put the coat on herself.
At the front door she looked back. Adam stood beside the table. The ring lay between the plates. He was still the man she wanted to turn towards, and she had ended it anyway.
Mary opened the door and left alone.