The woman at the hotel asked Lena to repeat the reference number.
Lena stood outside the café side door, where the signal was better, with her apron tucked into her jacket so she could read her note.
She repeated it slowly.
“One moment,” the woman said.
Lena looked at the yellow flowers by the window. They had moved the stand trial to Friday so Jo could keep Saturday for the birthday lunch. Bea was bringing the final sample then.
“I'm sorry,” the woman said. “That booking is cancelled.”
Lena looked back at the phone.
“Cancelled?”
“Yes.”
“It was for four nights. We're getting married on the Saturday before.”
“There's no current reservation under this reference.”
“Could it have been changed to another room?”
“I can only tell you the status of this booking. If you have another confirmation, I can check that.”
Lena didn't have another confirmation.
“Thank you,” she said. It came out as though the woman had answered her breakfast question.
She ended the call and went inside.
Jo was taking money at the counter. Lena waited until the customer left, then told her she needed ten minutes.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Something in her face made Jo nod.
Lena called Daniel. He answered over the sound of a drill, then moved away from it.
“Everything all right?”
“The hotel says our booking's cancelled.”
He was quiet.
“Did you cancel it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Another silence. Not long enough to make a mystery of it. Long enough to make her heart begin beating too hard.
“The morning after we talked about postponing.”
She looked at the counter, at a little spoon lying beside the sugar bowl. That conversation had been three weeks before Nate came. She remembered the floor, the guest list, his arm around her while she cried.
“You cancelled before he came back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought we could do something different.”
“What?”
“I hadn't decided.”
“Have you booked anything else?”
“No.”
She pressed her palm against the counter. Her fingertips felt cold.
“Yesterday you said Saturday.”
“I know.”
“You knew there wasn't a hotel.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. Jo came out of the kitchen, saw her face and stopped.
“I need you home,” Lena said.
“I've got to finish this first.”
“When?”
“An hour. Maybe less.”
“Call me when you leave.”
She ended the call before he could tell her something gentle she couldn't bear.
Jo came beside her. “What?”
“He cancelled the honeymoon weeks ago.”
Her sister stared.
“He says he wanted something different. Nothing's booked.”
“Lena.”
She shook her head. She didn't want comfort to carry her past the question.
“I need to pause the flowers. The stands. Anything today.”
“I'll tell Bea.”
“No. I'll do it.”
She took her phone outside again.
Bea answered while walking somewhere. Lena could hear footsteps and a shop door.
“Don't do the stand trial Friday,” she said.
“Why?”
“Daniel cancelled the hotel before Nate got here. I'm trying to understand what he was doing.”
Bea stopped walking.
“Did he?”
“Yes. He just told me.”
“I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
The words surprised Lena. They steadied Bea too; she could hear it in the next breath.
“Will you come to the café after lunch?” Lena asked. “Before I go home. I want to go through what he asked you. I don't want to get it wrong.”
“Yes.”
“No new questions for Nate. He doesn't know about this.”
“I won't call him.”
Lena went back inside. For the rest of the morning she served people with a concentration so narrow it frightened her. She couldn't afford to let the cup in her hand become the room she wouldn't sit in. She couldn't put somebody's breakfast down and start crying about a booking they knew nothing about.
At noon Daniel messaged that he was leaving work. He could be home in twenty minutes. He added that he had the cancellation email if she needed to see the date.
She told him she would come after she'd spoken to Bea. He said all right.
The job he'd refused was still real. The shelf was real. The kisses, the evening at the sail loft, the way he'd held her after she'd hurt him. She couldn't make any of them disappear to explain this cleanly.
But the hotel had been cancelled before the envelope, before the jealousy, before Nate had stood in the café saying he thought she wanted him there.
Before she had done anything Daniel could forgive.
Lena put her phone down and went to wash the empty cups.