His Password Was Her Birthday, So I Canceled Our Wedding novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Wrong Gate
At JFK the Santoros walk out of arrivals instead of Justine's parents; Brendan excuses it, Justine cancels the wedding, holds out her ring and is told to keep it, and Clive is waiting at the curb.
The night before my wedding, I stood at the JFK arrivals gate with a bouquet of peonies and watched the wrong couple walk out.
They were my fiance's ex-girlfriend's parents, wheeling suitcases with Italian luggage tags.
Mine were supposed to land from Ohio at eight.
Brendan went still beside me.
Then he stepped away with his phone at his ear.
"You got into my account again?" he said, low and furious. "You rebooked the flights?"
"Tomorrow is my wedding. Give me one day without you."
His ex, Gianna Santoro, had fixed his seating at a dinner once and found his lost keys twice.
She had also been breaking into his accounts for three years, and he changed his passwords every month.
Every March he took one Sunday alone and never said where.
My phone buzzed.
It was Clive Baines, Brendan's best man, who never texted me.
I'm sorry. Thought you should see this before tomorrow.
Under it was a screenshot from Gianna's private page. She had written that her ex was engaged now, but his password was still her birthday.
She wrote that he let her in whenever she liked, and she used it to mess with his girlfriend.
She wrote that when she asked him to come back, he could barely hold himself together.
Then: One more like and I'm walking into that wedding to take my man.
Strangers had filled the comments telling her she was sick.
Only one account had liked it.
I knew the little icon.
It was the account Brendan had made for wedding planning, the one he used for the caterer and the band.
Three years, I thought.
It had never been that he couldn't stop her.
He had never wanted to.
My thumb moved on its own.
I canceled the hall.
I canceled the honeymoon in Maui.
Brendan hung up and ushered the Santoros toward the car, smiling the way he did for clients.
"Brendan, honey," said Gianna's mother, Carla, "you remembered."
He had handed her a bouquet of lilies from the trunk.
On the drive over I had told him twice that my mother's favorite flower was the peony.
He'd said he'd pick something up.
Carla lifted the lilies to her face and said, "After all these years you still know I love lilies."
A card was tucked in the stems, in his handwriting from last night.
Welcome, Mom and Dad.
He had not bought them for my mother.
My phone rang again.
"Honey?" said my mother, in her careful voice. "The agent says the names on our tickets aren't ours, so they won't let us board."
"Dad and I must have messed something up. I'm not blaming you."
"I bought new seats for tomorrow morning, and we'll sleep here at the airport tonight. You go home and rest."
She hung up before I could speak.
A photo came through.
My father was asleep sitting up on a steel bench in Dayton with his coat over his knees and their bags piled beside him.
Under it she had typed: We can take care of ourselves.
My nose stung.
Brendan slammed the trunk and turned around.
"Get in, Justine. People are staring."
"My parents are sixty-three. They've been in an airport since morning."
I held up my phone and showed him my father.
"What about my parents?"
He barely looked.
"Your mom booked new seats. It's handled. What is it you want from me?"
It was always like this.
My birthday ring had been delivered to her flat, already opened, and I was told not to make a scene.
Fourteen months ago I was seven months pregnant when my car to the hospital took me to a cemetery in Queens.
By the time anyone found me, we had lost our daughter, and I was told she might not have lived anyway.
Every time, there was a reason for Gianna, and every time, I was the one asked to let it go.
Carla coughed gently from the back seat of his car.
His voice went soft.
"Mrs. Santoro isn't feeling well. We'll talk at home."
I looked at the man I was supposed to marry tomorrow at five.
"We're done," I said.
I pulled the ring off my finger and held it out.
His face closed.
"Don't be ridiculous. Keep it."
"I won't have you telling people I never bought you one."
He got in, started the engine, and drove away with her parents.
I watched his taillights until they turned the corner.
Behind me a car horn sounded once, short and polite.
Clive Baines was parked at the curb with the window down.
He had been in that arrivals hall the whole time, behind a pillar.
"He didn't just like it," Clive said.
"Get in. I'll show you the rest."
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