The first message was about breakfast.
Owen pointed to the date above it. 'We'd only been out twice. She'd gone home and I thought I'd made a mess of it. I hadn't kissed her.'
Lena read the words beneath his finger.
I like the thought of being ordinary with you.
She had written that. It was the first sentence of a letter she never sent, written after Kit's first job away when she'd been too proud to say how much she missed him. Ordinary was what she had wanted: not a perfect weekend saved up between departures, just him there while she looked for clean socks.
Bea had kept the letters. She could have read one. She could have liked a phrase and used it because she didn't know how else to say something.
Lena looked at the rest of the page.
I want the burnt corner of the toast and your blue cup. I want to hear you looking for a teaspoon while I'm still asleep.
Her hand tightened under the cover.
The cup had been Kit's. She had repaired it once, and he had repaired it badly the second time. They'd kept using it because neither could throw away the other's effort. She remembered putting those things in the letter, small things she wanted him to know she had noticed.
'There was a cup?' she asked.
'In my old flat.' Owen smiled. 'A blue one. She used to laugh at the glue I'd left round the handle.'
He took the page at the corner and turned it.
Lena's thoughts went quickly, too quickly to settle. Bea had changed some details, perhaps. It had been a cup in another flat, another kitchen. Maybe that was all: one borrowed piece because they both loved men who broke things and tried to mend them.
The next selected message sat beside one of Owen's. A little note beneath it explained that they had been planning a weekend away.
If we get lost, we can call it the route. You can make the film and I'll do the terrible low note. We'll be the only people who think it's funny.
She had written that in a different letter. An unsent one from before the last fight, trying to ask Kit for a weekend which wasn't arranged around his work. She had torn the top corner while folding it. The paper was lined, taken from a notebook beside the cinema till. She remembered writing We'll be the only people twice because the first time she had missed out a word.
Bea had not simply borrowed one nice phrase.
Owen was saying something about a holiday cottage. Lena caught only the end of it.
'—and we did get lost. Quite badly. I asked about the film and the low note. She said it was a daft holiday game and made me do a voice for the satnav.' He smiled. 'She insisted the wrong turns were part of the story.'
He was smiling. She could see him remembering it, the real holiday built on words which had belonged somewhere else.
'Could I look at this one?' she asked.
'Of course.'
He took his hand away. Lena read the message once more. There was no doubt. Not a resemblance, not the sort of thing anybody might say. Her game with Kit, the low note he had asked her for that morning.
In the bridal room someone laughed. Bea said something sharp in response. A drawer opened and shut.
Lena turned the page.
The next spread had a title Owen had written by hand: When we stopped guessing.
Two messages, one below the other.
Owen's was short.
I don't think I can stay if children are off the table. I like you too much to pretend it won't matter later. Do you really want that with me?
Lena looked towards him. He had stopped smiling, but only because he was watching her read something private.
'I didn't know if it was right to put that in,' he said. 'But it was when I knew we were all right. It's part of us.'
Below it was Bea's answer.
Yes. I want a child someday. A noisy kitchen, a height mark on the door, someone asking why the moon follows the car. I want us still talking when we're too tired to finish a sentence.
Lena read the answer to the end.
She had written it to Kit on a Sunday night, sitting at the little table by their window. Never sent. He'd been away; she had let herself imagine him older, a hand on a child's back, their flat somehow stretched into a house. The moon following the car was something her dad had told her when she was small. She had told Kit the story, but he had never seen the letter.
Owen shifted beside her. 'She wasn't sure I believed her. I'd got myself in a bit of a state.'
'About children?'
'Yes. We were different on a few things. I didn't want either of us saying what the other one wanted to hear.' He touched the wooden cover. 'Then she sent this. We talked after. It wasn't just a message.'
Lena looked at the date. Eighteen months ago. Near the start, before the flat, before the little earring box, before Bea had asked Lena whether Owen might be the one.
She remembered her friend saying they had almost finished, early on. That they had worked it out. Lena had not asked how. She had been glad not to have to sit on the floor with Bea and a bottle of wine, beginning again.
'Are you all right?' Owen asked.
She had gone quiet too long.
'I need a minute,' she said.
'What is it?'
'I need to speak to Bea.'
He looked towards the bridal-room door. 'They're trying to get her dressed.'
'I know. I won't be long.'
She couldn't tell him she loved the book. She couldn't give it back and leave him smiling over her words. But there was one answer Bea had to give her before she said anything else.
'Can I take this in?' she asked.
He hesitated. 'Yes. Just don't get anything on it. It's for the photographs too.'
'I'll be careful.'
Lena held the book against her waist. The wooden edge rested across the green dress. She had helped make this room, selected the jars, painted the card stands. She knew exactly where Bea would be sitting.
She knocked once and went in.