Saturday began with sunlight.
Lena had secretly hoped for rain. Not a storm, just enough that the garden would have been unpleasant, the photographs difficult, the dress a problem to keep dry. The thought was small and mean, and the bright morning ignored it completely.
She lay still until eight. Then she got up, washed her hair and put on a blue cotton dress that had never been meant for a ceremony.
At the mirror she reached automatically for the ring on the little shelf, where it wasn't anymore. She put her hand down and fastened her own necklace instead. It took three tries without Daniel.
Bea waited at the harbour with two coffees from the bakery.
“I know the café makes coffee,” she said before Lena could object. “I'm still buying it somewhere else.”
Lena took one. “Good.”
They sat on the low wall. Bea had a roll in a paper bag and broke it badly into two unequal pieces. She gave Lena the larger one, then announced she needed some back because generosity hadn't fed her.
Lena laughed and tore a bit off.
They watched boats go out. Nobody sailing away knew what day it was supposed to be. At half past nine a woman in running clothes asked them to take a photograph of her and her dog. Bea tried three times. The dog looked away in every one.
“It's a private creature,” Lena said.
The woman laughed, thanked them and went on.
Lena drank her coffee. She had expected each little normal thing to hurt. Some did. Some simply happened.
“What do you want to do?” Bea asked.
Lena looked toward the old harbour steps. Daniel had first taken her there after Jo's dinner. They'd gone again just before the cancellation, and she'd thought she was recovering something they could keep.
She had pictured coming down here after the ceremony today, just the two of them for ten minutes while guests drank in the garden. A private breath in the middle of the public happiness.
“Not that,” she said, nodding toward the steps.
Bea followed her look. “Okay.”
They walked the other way.
At the end of the quay was an old arcade Lena hadn't gone into for years. The door was propped open with a bucket. Inside, machines flashed and somebody's child was trying to persuade a parent that one more coin would certainly change everything.
Lena stopped.
Bea looked at her. “Really?”
“I want to throw things.”
“Excellent choice.”
They bought a few tokens and tried the little basketball game. Lena missed the first five shots. Bea missed the first four, then looked so proud of the fifth that Lena laughed hard enough to miss another.
A boy behind them offered advice. They accepted it seriously and improved not at all.
“Your hands are too low,” he said.
“My expectations are too low,” Bea replied.
They tried a game where little boats raced across a screen. Lena's boat crashed into the harbour wall. Bea's went round in a circle until the clock ended.
“Very accurate holiday,” Lena said.
By the time they left she was warm and properly laughing. Then she saw a couple outside holding hands, and the sadness came back so quickly she nearly stopped walking.
Bea didn't ask why. She gave Lena time to find her own pace again.
They went to the beach. Not the old steps, not a trip someone had planned for her. They found a dry place on the sand and sat with their shoes beside them.
Lena's phone buzzed. Nate had sent a photograph of the blue mug on his kitchen counter. There was the little chip beneath the base, visible because he'd tipped it onto its side.
Found and accounted for, he wrote. Posting Tuesday as promised.
Nothing about what hour she would have been walking down the aisle. Nothing to claim the day because Daniel wasn't in it.
She sent back, Thank you. I'm at the beach with Bea. We have been terrible at sport.
His reply came later.
Consistent, then.
She smiled and put the phone away.
At lunchtime Bea went to her shop for a short delivery she'd promised. Lena could have felt left. Instead she bought a sandwich and stayed on the sand with the notebook she'd brought.
She tried to draw the arcade boat from memory. It looked more like a shoe. She wrote boat underneath and decided that was enough.
Around two, the time she had meant to marry, she stopped drawing.
She looked at her bare hand. The sun was warm on it. She didn't feel free in the bright, simple way she'd imagined people must feel after making a brave decision. She felt tired. She felt cheated. She felt glad there was no ceremony she had to smile through.
She let all of it be there for a while.
Then she stood, brushed sand from her dress and walked back toward town.
Jo came down at four, carrying a small box from the café. Bea had returned by then. They sat at an ordinary table outside the bakery because Jo refused to spend her afternoon off rearranging her own furniture.
Inside the box were three slices of cake. Not wedding cake. The chocolate one Lena had liked since childhood.
“I've brought forks,” Jo said. “If anybody wants to be dignified.”
“No,” Bea said.
They ate from the paper cases. Lena got chocolate on her thumb and licked it off. Jo told them about a customer who had booked the wrong café, arrived furious and then stayed because the food smelled better than the place he'd intended.
Bea said she wanted that on the sign.
Lena laughed with cake still in her mouth, and Jo told her not to choke on the first relaxed thing she'd eaten all week.
Afterward they walked a little together. Jo's feet hurt. Bea needed to lock the shop. Lena wanted another half hour outside. Nobody could give the others the whole day. They found a few minutes that belonged to all three, then parted at the corner with simple hugs.
At home Lena put the notebook on the desk. Her phone held no message from Daniel. She was relieved, then sad, then relieved again.
She opened the window, made herself tea and sat where she could see the street.
The day she'd feared had happened. It hadn't been empty. It hadn't been what she wanted either.
Tomorrow was Sunday. She had no grand plan for it.
For once that did not feel like losing.