He Said Apologize, I Said the Wedding Is Off novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Apology
At a memorial dinner the widow shows fake chats and Greta's fiancé orders her to apologize; she does, then learns he has secretly given the widow a code to her grandmother's lake house, calls off the wedding and leaves, and on the road the lock reports the widow walking in.
Marcy stood up at her husband's memorial dinner and set her phone in the middle of the table.
It was the third anniversary of his death, and twenty of us sat in the back room of a supper club.
I had driven us there, because Rupert hadn't driven after dark in three years.
I had always figured it was his night vision.
Marcy had been kind to me all evening.
She had saved me the chair next to hers and asked how the wedding plans were going.
On Tuesday she had asked me to text her our engagement photo, for the memorial slideshow.
"There's something I need to say, and I'm sorry it's tonight," she said.
Her eyes were red.
Three chat screenshots were blown up on her screen.
The profile picture on them was my engagement photo, Rupert and me on the dock.
In the messages, "I" called her seven-year-old a leech and wrote that he had better not come near my wedding.
"I know you don't like me," Marcy said, looking straight at me.
"But he's a child."
Her husband's parents were staring at me.
I read the messages once.
I had never written a word of them.
They had no commas and too many exclamation points, and I always use commas.
"Open the whole thread," I said.
"Mine has no such conversation. Put both phones side by side and see who's lying."
Marcy's tears came faster. "You want me to read it all again, out loud, tonight?"
Rupert took my hand off the table and held it hard.
"Greta, that's enough."
He didn't raise his voice, and the whole room quieted anyway.
"You think I sent those?" I asked him.
"I didn't say that."
"Then let's check the thread."
"No."
He said it without even a pause.
"It's a memorial, and she's upset. Stop pushing her."
The woman who had faked the messages was crying, and I was the one pushing her.
"It's fine," Marcy murmured. "I'm used to people not liking me."
"If my son isn't welcome at the wedding, we just won't go."
She gave Rupert a small, sad smile.
His grip on my hand tightened.
"Apologize," he said.
"I didn't do it."
"Apologize first."
"Why?"
"Because you are not ruining tonight."
The wedding was nine days away.
All year I had let things go so they wouldn't turn into fights.
I had even told myself that he looked after his dead friend's widow because he was a man who kept his promises.
But with her on one side and me on the other, he had picked the one who was harder to manage.
I did not want to fight in front of her husband's parents.
I turned to Marcy. "I'm sorry."
She lifted her head.
Tears were still running down her face, but one corner of her mouth went up.
It stayed there a moment before she hid it in a napkin.
Rupert let go of my hand and patted the back of it.
"There. That's better."
In the car he told me to be the bigger person.
"She's fragile," he said. "Don't fight her over every little thing."
"By the way, she asked if she could use the lake house this weekend. A party for her boy."
"No," I said.
"Okay. Fine."
The lake house was my grandmother's, and it was mine.
It held her photographs and the quilts and three generations of things she had never let anyone use.
At home I didn't trust his okay, so I wrote it down.
I emailed him from the couch while he stood three feet away.
"The lake house is not available to Marcy, for a party or for anything else."
His phone buzzed in his hand.
He read it and nodded. "Fine. We won't lend it to her."
"You won't give her a code behind my back?"
He looked hurt.
"I'm your fiancé. Can't you trust me at all?"
A pang of guilt went through me for even asking.
I opened my mouth to say sorry again.
Then he went down the hall to take a call, and my phone chimed.
It was the lake house app.
"Visitor code created. Guest: Marcy Dunning. Created by: Rupert Linwood. Access: entire house. Valid for 72 hours."
I stood very still, and the guilt went out of me completely.
He had agreed to my face and done it behind my back before the call even ended.
I found him in the bedroom doorway with his phone still at his ear.
"I saw the lock record."
"Let me explain. It's only three days. She won't break anything."
"I said no."
"We're getting married," he snapped.
"Do you really have to draw such a hard line between your house and my decision?"
I laughed.
"Yes. Because we're not getting married."
I took my ring off and put it on the dresser.
I packed one suitcase.
Two friends from the dinner had followed us home, and they took turns telling me to be reasonable.
Rupert said I couldn't use the wedding as a weapon to make him drop Marcy.
I didn't answer any of them, and I walked past them to the door.
"You're leaving over a password?" he called after me.
I stopped with my hand on the knob.
"No. I'm leaving because with you, my no doesn't mean anything."
I was in the car and out on the highway before my phone buzzed on the seat.
It was the lake house app again, and the new line was the only one on the screen.
"Front door opened. Marcy Dunning. 10:52 p.m."
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