Chapter 3 - What Was Inside the Garment Bag
Nadia was waiting in the driveway with a banana, a water bottle, and an iced matcha.
"Eat," she ordered the second I got in.
"I had coffee."
"Coffee is not a food group."
"I'm too nervous to eat."
"You passed out at prom because you didn't eat."
"That was ten years ago."
"And you've learned nothing."
I took the banana.
The ceremony was at Bethel Chapel, a little fieldstone church out on County Road 12, with the reception at a restored place called Marden Hall about ten minutes away. The chapel had a private bridal suite — cream walls, a couple of antique mirrors, tall windows looking out on a walled garden.
Marissa met us at the side door. "We're right on schedule. Florist is finishing the aisle, the musicians are tuning, and Caleb's already here."
"Is he panicking?" I asked.
"Only on the inside."
"Perfect."
My dress was hanging in the bridal suite. Nadia and I had brought it over the afternoon before in a zipped garment bag, and Marissa had locked the room behind us.
It was a simple ivory silk gown — fitted lace bodice, long soft skirt. I'd spent months hunting for it. I never wanted anything showy. I wanted a dress that felt like me.
My mother should have been there when I picked it. That thought had trailed me through every single fitting.
While Nadia put my hair in curlers, the makeup artist, Bianca, laid out her kit across the vanity. My aunt Carol showed up a little later with a small sewing kit and the pearl earrings my mom wore at her own wedding.
"I thought these should be yours today," she said.
I took them carefully. "Are you sure?"
"They were always going to be yours."
My throat closed up.
Aunt Carol touched my cheek. "Your mother is in this room in every way that counts."
I nodded, because I knew if I talked I'd cry.
About an hour before the ceremony, Nadia insisted I go get some air. Bianca realized at the same time that she'd left part of her airbrush gear in her car, so she stepped out too. She pulled the bridal-suite door shut behind her and figured it had caught.
It hadn't.
Nadia and I walked the walled garden for maybe ten minutes. We talked about Caleb, about the honeymoon, about whether Nadia was going to humiliate herself during the toast.
By the time we came back inside, my nerves had actually settled.
The bridal-suite door looked closed. Bianca still wasn't back, so Nadia lifted the garment bag off the hook and laid it across the chaise.
She pulled the zipper down.
Then she stopped.
The floor seemed to slide sideways under me.
My dress had been destroyed.
The skirt was slashed in a dozen places. The lace bodice was cut open from the neckline nearly to the waist. One sleeve dangled by a few threads, and long ribbons of silk had been sawed right out of the train.
For a few seconds, neither of us could say anything.
Then Nadia whispered, "Oh my God."
I reached out and touched one of the cuts with shaking fingers.
"This wasn't an accident."
"No," she said. "It wasn't."
Whoever did this hadn't been trying to slow me down. They'd made sure the gown could never be worn again.
My knees gave a little. Nadia caught my arm and steered me into a chair.
"Breathe."
"I can't wear it."
"I know."
"The ceremony starts in less than an hour."
"I know. We're going to fix this."
"How?"
"I don't know yet."
She went into the hallway and started calling for Marissa.
I sat there staring at the ruined dress. Months of fittings and planning, gone in a few minutes — but that wasn't the part that hurt. What gutted me was the hate behind it. Somebody had stood in that room, on my wedding day, and calmly cut apart the dress I was supposed to marry Caleb in.
Marissa rushed in with the church coordinator, a soft-spoken man named Mr. Harmon. His face changed the second he saw the gown.
"Nobody touches anything else in here," he said. "We've got cameras in the corridor and at both entrances. I'll pull the footage right now."
"We were gone less than ten minutes," Nadia said.
He nodded and left with Marissa.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. For one humiliating minute I wanted to go home. I wanted to call Caleb and tell him we'd do this another day, in a courthouse, somewhere nobody could touch it.
Then Aunt Carol walked in. She looked at the dress and went white.
"Who did this?"
"They're checking the cameras," Nadia said.
Aunt Carol was quiet for a long moment. Then she turned to me.
"Your mother's wedding gown is at my house."
I stared at her. "What?"
"She asked me to keep it safe, right before she passed. She said she wanted you to have the choice to wear it someday. And she didn't want it sitting in your father's closet where Sabrina might get rid of it."
My chest went tight. "You never told me."
"I didn't want you to feel like you had to wear it. It was supposed to be a choice, not a weight around your neck."
"It might not even fit."
"You and your mother were almost exactly the same size at twenty-eight. I know, because I took both of you shopping."
"Your house is fifteen minutes away."
"I can be back in thirty."
"The ceremony—"
"Can wait," Nadia cut in. "People survive late weddings every day."
Aunt Carol already had her keys in her hand. "Marissa keeps an emergency seamstress on her vendor list. If it needs taking in, we'll take it in."
May you like
And she was gone.
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