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Her room still held her trophies and scrapbooks and her collection of Barbie dolls. Perhaps sometime soon she should give away most of it and pack up the mementos she wanted to keep.
This house was no longer her home. To be accurate, she didn’t have a home at all. Harry had taken her in at first. Now she was planning to descend on her grandparents. Sooner or later, Cate was going to have to make some decisions about the future.
But every time she tried to imagine the future, all she wanted to do was pull the covers over her head and hide.
Harry would no longer tolerate that behavior. And it was a sure bet her grandmother wouldn’t. So Cate would be forced out into the world of reality whether she was ready or not.
She said her goodbyes and left soon after. With her father and Becca out of the house, she knew her mother would want to leave also. This was one of the days she went to the gym for spin class.
Cate stowed her suitcase in the back seat and got into Harry’s little electric car. It was hot from sitting in the sun, so she rolled down the windows to give the AC a chance to catch up.
As she exited her parents’ beautifully landscaped property, she was struck by the fact thattodaywas the beginning of her new life. She had thought Saturday was, but she had been painfully wrong.
It was too early to go back to Harry’s. There was nothing for her to do there anyway except watch TV and eat and sleep.
She drove aimlessly, seeing her neighborhood through new eyes. Jason’s parents’ home was on her route. She managed to pass it without flinching. His mom had thrown them a beautiful wedding shower back in the winter. His parents still maintained a lavish lake house near Blossom Branch, but they had chosen city life long ago.
What was Cate supposed to do now? The gnawing uncertainty was almost more painful than the raw grief of the first twenty-four hours.
She had known Jason in elementary school, but both families relocated and she lost touch with the blue-eyed, blond-haired boy. When he ran into her again—this time at UGA—they were drawn together almost immediately by their mutual connections to Blossom Branch. They made plans together, dreamed dreams together. So maybe they hadn’t jumped each other’s bones every single night, but they had been happy. Hadn’t they?
Everything that was supposed to happen in the next two years wascouplestuff. All of that was worthless now.
Without meaning to, or at least not consciously, she ended up on West Paces Ferry Road heading toward the church. Something drew her there. Perhaps like gawkers who flock to the scene of an accident, Cate wanted to see for herself if anything had changed.
She still had a key to the church. The associate minister had signed it out to Cate with the understanding that she would return it after she had changed into her reception gown post-wedding. Only, Cate had fled. The key had been hiding all this time in the bottom of her leather bag...the purse Jason had dropped off Saturday night. Had anyone missed the key? Or been afraid to ask for it under the circumstances?
Everything at the church was locked on a weekday. Cate dug for the key and used it to access the two beautiful doors that opened directly into the sanctuary. These were the steps where she and Jason would have paused in the sunshine, taking a moment to realize they were husband and wife. She had pictured that moment time and again and had asked the photographer to make sure and capture the two of them in the very first minutes of their marriage.
Shaking off the unpleasant fantasy, she went inside. The large room was silent, of course. Sunlight coursed through the stained glass.
She walked right up to the altar, paced off in her head the spots where the bridesmaids and groomsmen had been standing. Then she took her place right in front, center stage. Shivers ran down her spine. Goose bumps erupted on her arms. She felt dizzy and sick and faint. Surely the past six days were nothing but a nightmare.
But then she saw it. A tiny piece of eucalyptus the cleaners had missed. It was stuck in the altar rail, down near the floor. No one would have noticed it during Sunday services.
She retrieved the bruised greenery and stroked a tiny leaf. When she held it up to her nose, it still retained a whiff of fragrance.
This was the spot where her life changed irrevocably.
Turning around, she gazed out at the empty pews, trying to imagine what it had been like at the end. Whispers and shock and consternation. Most people would have been kind. A few might have enjoyed the juicy drama of the aborted wedding.
As she stood there, frozen with the painful memories, the old parish rector ambled in. “Ah, it’s you,” he said. “Hello, Catherine.”
“Hello, Father.” No one ever called her by her full name. The rector had been here before Cate and her family came. He was long past retirement age, but the congregation loved him.
“I see you’ve returned to the scene of the crime,” he said.
His apparent levity startled her, but she saw compassion in his eyes. He had been taller once. In recent years, his body hadsettled. His thinning white hair and bushy eyebrows gave him a gnomelike appearance. A benevolent one, though. The kind who was supposed to bring good luck.
“I didn’t plan to come,” she said. “The car just brought me here.”
“Or your subconscious, hmm?” He stood beside her, choosing to stare out over the empty room as she was. “The view is different up here. Did you notice that on Saturday?”
“I can’t say that I did,” she admitted. “I was pretty nervous.”
“It takes courage to stand up in front of twelve hundred people and declare your love for someone.”
She shot the old man a sideways look. “Were you shocked when Jason pulled me aside?”
