On Sunday, Adam brought strawberries to Mary's flat. She ate one before putting them in a bowl, and he said there had been more when he'd bought them.
For ten minutes, it was an ordinary afternoon. He sat at the kitchen table while she finished an email. He asked what they should do afterwards. She said she wanted to walk somewhere, and he suggested the river.
Then her phone lit up beside the keyboard.
Nina had sent a time for Tuesday. Mary picked it up to answer.
“Who is it?” Adam asked.
“Nina. We're meeting after she closes.”
He put the bowl down.
“About the flowers?”
“No.”
Mary sent the reply, then turned towards him. She had not meant to hide it. She hadn't expected to announce an appointment either.
“I want to talk to her properly before we pay the deposit.”
“We've talked about her.”
“You and I have.”
“What else do you need?”
The question could have been reasonable. His voice made it sound like a complaint.
“I want to hear what happened without being a customer as well.”
“She's going to tell you the same things.”
“Then it won't take long.”
He looked away towards the window. Mary could see him moving his jaw before he spoke.
“I'd rather you didn't.”
“Why?”
“Because we're engaged. I don't want to spend the whole time defending myself to somebody I'm not with anymore.”
“I'm not asking you to come.”
“That's part of the problem.”
Mary closed the laptop. The change in the room was so quick that she still expected to find a way back to the river plan.
“Do you want to sit in?”
“I want to know what's being said about me.”
“I'll tell you what I decide. I'm not reporting the conversation.”
He leaned back, his chair creaking.
“So she gets to say anything she wants, and I'm supposed to be grateful you still want me afterwards.”
“That's not what I said.”
“It's what it feels like.”
She remembered the rehearsal, him wanting to stay, the crease in his shirt beneath her hand. She didn't want this afternoon to replace it. She could let the meeting go. Nina had told her plenty already. They could take the strawberries out and walk, and both pretend the decision was Mary's.
“What are you asking me to do?” she said.
He looked directly at her. “Cancel it.”
“And if I don't?”
“Then I don't know how you can say you trust me enough to marry me.”
Mary sat very still.
He could have taken it back. She waited, leaving him enough quiet to hear what he'd said.
“I am trying to know you,” she said at last. “Not just believe the version that's easiest for us.”
“I'm here. Ask me.”
“I have. You refused to tell me who the woman before Nina was.”
“That's different.”
“It doesn't make talking to you the answer to everything.”
His face reddened. She wished he would stand up and go to the sink, do something that let him stop defending the words before he said more.
Instead, he said, “If seeing Nina matters more than this, perhaps we shouldn't be choosing a wedding date.”
The room seemed smaller. Mary looked at the hotel folder beneath her laptop. On Friday she'd carried it through the street like something precious. She hadn't told her mother the date yet. There were still things she could choose without unpicking an entire wedding.
“Then we won't pay the deposit,” she said.
Adam frowned. “Mary.”
“I'm meeting her on Tuesday. I'm not cancelling that to keep you happy.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You told me to cancel. You said perhaps we shouldn't choose the date if I didn't.”
He rubbed his forehead. “I don't want to lose you.”
She hated how much that softened her. She wanted to go round the table and put her arms round him. If she did, she'd have to remember what she was still saying no to.
“I don't want to lose you either.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
She looked at him. “Because you asked me to prove it this way.”
He got up. For a moment she thought he was leaving, and the fear was sharp enough to make her almost speak. He walked to the counter instead and rested both hands on its edge.
“I need a minute.”
Mary let him have it. She picked up a strawberry, then put it back. Neither of them wanted to eat now.
After a while he turned round. “Can we still go out?”
She didn't know what it would mean. Whether the walk would allow them to calm down or give him a chance to make her answer sound smaller.
“Not today.”
He took his jacket from the chair. At the door he asked her to call him later.
“I might,” she said.
He left without a kiss. Mary stayed in the hall until she heard the building door close.
Then she put the bowl of strawberries in the fridge. On her phone, Nina's time was still waiting to be put in the calendar.
She added it.