Chapter 8: The Blue Lace Dress In The Mirror
The restroom at St. Mark's was too quiet after the sanctuary. The door clicked shut behind me and the sound of the organ and the murmuring guests went muffled. The tile was cold white, the lights were too bright, and the air smelled like hand soap and lilies from whatever air freshener they plugged in by the sink.
I wheeled myself to the long mirror because there was nowhere else to look. I didn't mean to study myself. I just ended up there.
My blue lace dress filled the frame. My brown hair was still pinned in the updo I'd spent an hour on that morning, a few strands loose around my face. My chair was fully visible, the armrests, the wheels, the footrests. I couldn't angle myself to hide any of it even if I'd tried, and for a long time that was exactly what I'd tried to do.
My eyes went to my left hand first. The scarring ran from my wrist up under my sleeve. It pulled tight in places, shiny in others. It went up my neck on the same side, just above the neckline of the dress. The lace didn't cover it. I had picked this dress because the sleeves were long enough and the neckline was high enough and I thought maybe it would be enough. It wasn't, and it was never supposed to be.
I breathed. One slow inhale through my nose, one out through my mouth. My chest lifted and the lace moved with it. I watched myself do it.
I let the tears come but I didn't let them take over. They slipped down without me wiping them right away. My eyes stayed open. I didn't look away from my face. I was twenty-eight years old and I had been looking away from that face in mirrors for nineteen years when I could get away with it.
"Okay," I whispered to myself. Just that one word. My voice sounded small in the tile room.
I sat there and looked at the whole picture - the dress, the chair, the scars, the tears - and for the first time that day I didn't think about how it would look in Emily's pictures. I thought about how it felt to wear it. The lace was soft against my skin. The chair was solid under me. I had chosen this. I hadn't been hidden when I chose it.
My phone buzzed in the small purse hooked to my chair. I already knew who it was.
Mom had been texting since Margaret stood up. I hadn't answered.
I pulled the phone out and opened the messages. Three missed texts from her. *Honey are you okay.* *Your dad and I can come get you.* Don't let them make a scene.
I typed back with my thumbs. My hands were shaking a little.
She said it. In front of everyone.
The reply came in less than a minute.
Oh honey. Come home. Right now. I'll come to the side door and get you. You don't have to stay there.
I read it twice. I could see her so clearly. She'd be standing in the back hallway, keys in her hand, her face tight with that worry she got when she wanted to fix things by making them smaller. Come home was what she'd said after every recital where the other kids stared, after every family photo where she tried to angle me just so, after the fire when she couldn't look at what I'd done without crying. It wasn't unkind. It was her way of loving me. Make it quiet. Make it safe. Make it go away.
I held the phone and looked back up at the mirror.
If I left through that side door, no one would stop me. Emily would get her clean pictures. Margaret and Daniel would have their fight without me in the middle. I could be home on our couch in twenty minutes and this day would be over.
And I would have done exactly what Emily told me to do. Go sit in the back. I'd just be sitting in a different back room. Hidden anyway.
I wiped my eyes finally with the tissue from the little holder by the sink. I took another breath. I texted back.
I'm not coming home. I'm going back in.
I watched the three dots appear, then disappear. No new message came.
I put my phone away and took the pins out of my purse that Emily's coordinator had given me that morning, the extra ones for my veil that I didn't need. I fixed one strand of hair that had come loose and tucked it back. I straightened the skirt of my dress over my knees. Not to make it prettier. To make it mine again.
I wasn't going back to be rescued. Margaret had already tried to do that. I wasn't going back to be hidden either. If I went back to that sanctuary, it had to be because I had something to say, not because someone else had said it for me.
May you like
I turned my chair around. The door was heavy and my arms were tired from holding myself so tight all morning. I pushed it open and the hallway air hit me, cooler, with the faint sound of the sanctuary again, voices low and waiting.
I wheeled myself forward toward the double doors. My hands were steady on the wheels now. I could see the light from the stained glass spilling out into the hallway in colors on the floor, and I followed it back.
