When we got home, I carried the little box of sample flowers upstairs so nobody would put something on top of it.
Bea went to find Mother. I put the box on the dressing table, washed my hands and peeled off the wet plaster. The pin prick was barely visible.
My phone buzzed beside the old one.
Mother had sent a message to the wedding family group.
Lucy still chasing him. Some things don't change! Let's all help Bea have a lovely week.
Beneath it was a photograph of Nate and me at the kitchen table.
I was leaning over his old phone. He sat close enough to see the screen with me, his head bent toward mine. You couldn't see what we were reading. You couldn't see Bea, who had been sitting on my other side.
You could see the second mug I'd made.
I remembered Mother standing in the doorway that morning, her phone in her hand. She'd taken it then. While I was asking my sister to tell me the truth, Mother had decided what it should look like to everyone else.
My face went hot.
I typed, We were looking at messages from two years ago. Bea was at the table with us. I am not chasing Nate.
I read it once and sent it.
Then I went downstairs.
Bea was in the kitchen, standing over Mother's notebook. A pencil lay across the page. Through the front-room door I could hear Mother speaking on the phone about the hired canopy.
“Have you seen the group?” I asked.
Bea looked up.
“Yes.”
“Did you answer?”
“I was about to speak to you.”
“Then say it there. You were with us.”
She took her phone from the counter, but she didn't type.
“People don't need the whole story in a group message.”
“They've just been given a story. It's wrong.”
“I know.”
“So tell them that.”
She looked at the notebook again. I could see the rough drawing of the garden, the chairs in little rows. My name was written near the space where Bea and Nate would stand.
“Mum thinks it would be easier if you sat with Ruth on Saturday,” she said.
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Instead of standing with me.”
I looked down at the page. Mother had drawn a line through my name and written it in the first row.
“Because of that picture?”
“Because things are difficult.”
“They were difficult when you asked me today.”
Bea rested her fingers on the counter. “I don't want anyone talking during the ceremony. Or watching you to see whether you're upset.”
“People who think I'm chasing him because Mum told them I am.”
“People who know you used to be together. There might be questions.”
“Nobody in that group knew until she sent this.”
“Some people knew about the summer.”
“Then they knew before you asked me to hold your bouquet.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Lucy, please.”
I put my phone beside the notebook.
“That's what happened. You were there. We were reading the message, and you know I didn't write it. You know why I was upset.”
“Yes.”
“Then why am I the one being moved?”
“You're still in the front row. With Ruth. I thought you might be more comfortable.”
“Did you ask me?”
Her mouth opened, then closed.
“No.”
I could still feel her hand smoothing the plaster around my finger. Two hours earlier she'd made me believe we could get through Saturday together.
I picked up the pencil and held it out to her.
“Put it back.”
She didn't take it.
Mother's voice rose in the front room, bright and businesslike. She was telling somebody how much she appreciated their help.
“Mum's already worried,” Bea said. “I can't spend every day fighting about one more thing.”
I laid the pencil down carefully.
“I'm one more thing?”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Then tell me what you mean.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down. “I mean I want to get married without everybody picking at us. I want one day that isn't about something going wrong.”
“I haven't done anything to your wedding.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
She looked at me, miserable, and I couldn't make myself stop.
“Last night you said you wouldn't let her humiliate me.”
“I'll talk to her about the message.”
“And about putting me in a chair because she doesn't like what we were talking about?”
“The chair isn't a punishment.”
“Then let me stand where you asked me to.”
Bea ran her thumb along the edge of the notebook.
“I think it's better this way,” she said.
I felt the sentence land harder than Mother's photograph.
I had thought my sister hadn't chosen yet. That if I asked clearly enough, she would remember the table at the florist's, remember asking me herself. But she had chosen. She was just trying to make it sound kind.
My phone buzzed. I looked down. An aunt had replied to the group asking whether everything was all right.
“Answer her,” I said.
Bea picked up her phone and typed. A moment later her message appeared beside Mother's.
We were all looking at old messages this morning. Please don't make anything of the photo.
“There,” she said.
I read it. It said enough to confirm I hadn't been alone with him. It didn't ask Mother to take back still chasing. And my place beside Bea stayed crossed out.
“It's better than nothing,” I said.
She flinched.
I wanted to feel cruel so I could stop. Mostly I felt tired.
“I need a minute,” I said.
“Lucy—”
“I'm not going to shout in the front room while she orders a canopy. I'm going upstairs.”
Bea stood as I reached the door.
“We'll still talk to her in the morning.”
I looked back at her.
“You'd better mean that.”
Upstairs, the sample flowers were waiting on the dressing table. The little rose Bea had held against my shirt lay in its cream ribbon, neat and dry.
I picked it up, then put it back.
I hadn't wanted to stand beside her because people would see me there. I wanted to stand beside her because she was my sister.
Now I didn't know what to do with the flower.