Chapter 5 — Everything She Chose

Preston sent me a photograph from Iceland on Tuesday.

Sienna stood in a cloud of steam, her wet hair pushed back from her face. His arm crossed the bottom of the picture. They were drinking champagne.

He had written: Found your new happy place.

I forwarded the image to no one. I didn't need a jury to authorize my departure.

Instead, I sent him the storage inventory for the belongings I'd collected and told him I had returned the apartment key.

He replied with a thumbs-up.

On Wednesday, my mother asked to see the dress I had chosen.

"I haven't chosen one yet."

"Well, don't wear that enormous thing Sienna put you in. You'll spend all day dragging it upstairs."

I grinned.

"You could have said that at the fitting."

"I thought you liked it."

So many people had thought that.

By Thursday afternoon, the immediate arrangements were settled. Mom would remain at the center through the weekend, then go home with Denise once her team approved it. I had the numbers of everyone involved and a video-call plan for Saturday.

The Dublin move would happen after I returned to Boston, packed properly, and finished the handover at work.

This trip was still only a few days.

At the airport, I bought a sandwich with money from my own account and felt absurdly proud of it.

Preston called while I was waiting to board.

I let it ring.

A message followed.

Send me your updated arrival time. The hotel can collect you.

I wrote: I told you on Saturday that our engagement is over. I am not coming to Iceland.

His response came as my boarding group was called.

You can be angry when you get here. Don't make the staff chase you.

I put my phone away and boarded the flight to Dublin.

Nathan was waiting beyond arrivals the next morning.

No flowers. No enormous sign. Just a navy sweater, dark jeans, and a paper cup in each hand.

He recognized me before I recognized him.

Then he smiled.

I stopped walking for half a second.

The years had changed his face. His shoulders were broader, and there was a faint crease beside his mouth that hadn't been there when we were young. But I knew the way he looked directly at me.

"Coffee?" he asked when I reached him. "Or is the time difference telling you it's midnight?"

"Both."

He handed me a cup.

"Can I take that?"

He indicated my suitcase.

I nodded. When he stepped closer, I put my free arm around him before I could overthink it.

He hugged me gently, careful of the coffee between us.

I meant to let go quickly.

Instead, I stayed for another breath.

"Hi," I said into his sweater.

"Hi, Audrey."

On the drive to Wicklow, he told me about the building he was restoring and the apprentice who'd dropped his measuring tape into a wall cavity.

He didn't ask me to relive the airport messages.

When we reached the manor, Maeve met us outside with a clipboard and sensible shoes.

"First, breakfast," she said. "Then decisions."

The revised arrangements were smaller. There would be no ballroom full of people waiting for me to prove I belonged among them. A few friends who'd booked Ireland before Preston changed his plans were still coming. I'd spoken to each myself.

They knew the engagement was over.

Maeve had kept the chapel, the flowers, and the dinner reservation. Everything else could change.

"Including the ceremony," she said as Nathan carried my suitcase upstairs. "You can simply have a meal. Nobody here will be offended."

"I know."

"Knowing and feeling obliged are occasionally different things."

I liked her very much.

After breakfast, she took me to a small bridal shop that had agreed to show me samples available to buy immediately.

The assistant asked what I liked.

I almost answered with Preston's preferences.

Then I pointed to a simple ivory dress with narrow straps and a skirt that moved when I moved.

It needed one alteration at the shoulder. The seamstress said she could finish it that evening.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

There was no lace collar hiding my throat. No heavy train requiring somebody to kneel behind me.

"That one," I said.

When we returned, Nathan was outside the chapel, talking to a staff member about the video setup for my mother.

"There's a socket near the front," he told me. "Your aunt can call early so we can test it. If you want."

"I want."

He fell into step beside me.

"Have you decided what tomorrow's going to be?"

"Not entirely."

We sat on a bench near the kitchen garden. A delivery driver rolled crates through a side gate. Somewhere inside, somebody dropped a pan and swore.

It was reassuringly ordinary.

"I need to ask you something," I said.

Nathan turned toward me.

"But I need you to be honest. Not kind instead of honest."

"I'll try."

"Would you stand beside me tomorrow?"

He didn't answer immediately.

I forced myself not to fill the pause.

"As what?" he asked.

"As someone I want to begin again with."

His gaze moved across my face.

"That's different from being a groom for an afternoon."

"I know."

"Because I won't pretend to be your husband to hurt him."

"I'm not asking you to."

I looked at my hands.

"I haven't come here believing a ceremony will fix me. I'm going back to Boston next week. I have work and Mom and a lot to untangle."

"All right."

"But you told me how you felt. I want to tell you something, too. I thought about you before this week. When you sent those pictures. When we talked about the chapel. I just didn't let myself finish the thought."

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"And now?"

"Now I'd like to find out what happens when I do."

He looked down briefly. When he looked back, the smile was gone, replaced by something that made it difficult to breathe normally.

"Then I'd like that, too."

"No legal vows tomorrow. No promises we haven't lived long enough to make."

"Agreed."

"And if this is too strange—"

"It's strange," he said. "You don't need to sell me a tidier version."

I laughed, and his hand moved toward mine, stopping just short.

I closed the distance.

Later, Maeve asked what name to put beside mine on the revised ceremony sheet.

I wrote it myself.

Nathan Hayes.

I didn't cross out my own name or change the date.

For a long time, I looked at those two names together.

Then I took a photograph and sent it to my mother.

Her reply came four minutes later.

I always liked that boy. Tell him I'd like to speak to him before Saturday.