The dress was ready.
Tess took it out of the wardrobe on Saturday and hung it from the bedroom door. It was the one she'd ordered for walking ahead of Mara, pale enough to look good in photographs without pretending to be bridal. She had steamed it a week ago.
She touched the shoulder, then the seam at the waist.
There should have been an early alarm. Messages about shoes, about which door, about whether Ben had remembered the boxes. Tess should have been eating something quickly and going to Mara with her hair still clipped out of the way.
She had woken at eight with nothing to do.
Cal had kept the evening free. He had sent a message on Friday confirming it, asking whether she wanted to eat out or stay in. She had said she'd decide in the morning.
It was morning. She still didn't know.
Tess put the dress back in the wardrobe without taking the hanger off the door hook first. It swung and caught on the handle. She had to lift it away carefully.
Then she dressed in jeans and went out alone.
She hadn't meant to go to the riverside café. At the bus stop she could have chosen the other direction, gone to buy things she needed, walked through the park. Instead she found herself following the same pavement she had taken in the blue dress.
The café was busy. There was a table inside by the window, not the one she'd sat at with Cal. Tess ordered tea and one of the oval biscuits.
She set her left hand on the table. Bare fingers, no mark. Mara's hand would have a pale line where the ring had been. Tess's didn't. She had worn it for less than an afternoon.
Her phone stayed in her pocket.
She ate half the biscuit. The dark edge was good. She wanted to take a photograph and send it to Mara with a complaint about how small it was. That was what they did when one of them was out alone: a terrible sandwich, a very good cake, a shop window that needed an opinion.
Tess took out the phone.
Mara hadn't written since Wednesday. Tess had wanted that space. Now the absence looked different with a half-eaten biscuit in front of her.
She opened their messages. There were photographs of table samples, then the arrangement about bringing the paper, then Mara's twenty-minute request. Above those were months of ordinary things.
Tess went back to the newest line and closed it.
She wasn't ready to turn this morning into a photograph Mara could answer with a heart.
Outside, someone carried flowers past the window. Not wedding flowers, just a bunch wrapped in brown paper. Tess watched them until they were gone.
She finished the biscuit slowly. She didn't feel free. She felt as though she'd missed an event she had spent weeks helping to make, and as though the person she would normally tell about that was missing too.
On her way out she bought two more biscuits in a paper packet.
Then she stopped beside the railing and wrote to Cal.
Come for supper at mine? I'd like that. About seven.
He replied before she reached the corner.
Yes. What shall I bring?
Tess looked at the little packet in her hand.
Dinner. I've bought the biscuits.
He sent back A balanced meal, then I'll call you in a bit and we'll choose.
Tess smiled. Only a little, but it was there.
At home the dress was still hooked partly outside the wardrobe. She lifted it clear, put it properly away and closed the door. Then she cleared her kitchen table, leaving enough room for two plates.