Chapter 9: Emily Alone With The Veil
I didn't mean to follow her to the bridal suite. I meant to wait in the hall.
Daniel had stepped out to take Margaret to the pastor's office, and Emily had slipped away when the photographer went to move his lights. I watched her veil trail behind her down the side aisle, and then I pushed my wheels forward without thinking. The dressing suite door was half open.
She was alone. Her veil was off, draped over the back of the white vanity chair like she'd tossed it. Her hair was still pinned, but the tiara was crooked. She was sitting on the little loveseat by the window, scrolling on her phone with both thumbs, breathing fast and shallow.
On the vanity, her wedding shot list was printed on thick card stock. I could see it from the doorway. Getting ready. Details. Bridal portrait. Bridesmaids. First look. Family formals. The boxes were checked in gold ink. At the bottom, in Emily's neat handwriting, she'd added sunset couple + bridal party on steps. There was no line for a sister photo. There had been one at the rehearsal.
Her phone rang and she jumped.
She answered on speaker without looking. "Mom?"
My mom's voice came through loud and sharp, that same tone she used at the rehearsal dinner when she told the coordinator Claire would be more comfortable near the back. "Emily, honey, Margaret is making a scene. You need to just finish the pictures without her. Get your photographer and get it done before Daniel's mother ruins the whole day."
I froze with my hands on my wheels.
Emily didn't answer right away. She stared at that shot list.
"Honey, are you listening?" my mom said. "We talked about this. Claire understands. She knows she's not photogenic right now. You can get nice ones with her later at the house."
Emily's mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes flicked to the doorway where I was. She hadn't seen me yet. The light from the stained glass fell across her lap.
"Mom," she said quietly. "I told her to go sit in the back."
"Well, good," my mom said. "That was sensible. Just don't let Margaret —"
"I told Claire she was ruining my pictures," Emily said. Her voice cracked on the last word.
There was a pause on the phone. "Well," my mom said. "You were honest. Someone had to say it."
Emily ended the call without saying goodbye. She set the phone face-down on the loveseat and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Her shoulders started to shake.
That's when she saw the gift.
I had left it on the vanity that morning before anyone else arrived. A small white frame with tissue paper still half around it. I hadn't written a card. Just the photo we'd found in our old house's storage box, the one the firefighter had taken with his disposable camera outside our house on Maple Street.
Emily picked it up with both hands. The tissue fell to the floor.
It was nineteen years ago. Claire in a smoke-stained t-shirt, seven years old, holding a baby in a pink blanket against her chest on the front lawn. My face was red from crying. Claire's arms were wrapped so tight around me. Her hair was singed. The caption on the bottom in black ink was in my dad's handwriting: Our hero, 10:42 am.
She made a sound then that I hadn't heard from her before. Not the practiced crying from the aisle, but a real, airless sob. She bent forward and held the frame against her chest and cried like that for a long time. Her veil shivered on the chair every time she gasped.
"I did what you do," she whispered to the empty room. She wasn't talking to me. She was talking to our mom on the phone even though the call was over. "I did exactly what you do. I hid her."
I could hear her breathing. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and mascara came off on her skin. She looked at the shot list again, then at the photo, then at her own reflection in the vanity mirror with the crooked tiara.
She didn't see me until she stood up.
I was still in the doorway, half in shadow. She froze with the frame still clutched to her dress.
For a second I thought she'd be embarrassed I saw her cry. Instead her face crumpled again. She didn't try to fix her expression.
May you like
She looked down at the veil on the chair. She reached for it slowly, with the same hand she held the frame with, and lifted it. She didn't put it on. She just held it, wrinkled and tangled, against the photo of us.
Then she started walking toward me, toward the door, toward the hallway that led back to the sanctuary.
