Chapter 9: Thirty Buttons

The dress arrived on Thursday morning in a flat white box.

A seamstress came with it, a quiet woman with pins in her sleeve.

She spent an hour on her knees in Nan's sitting room.

When she left, I stood in front of the long mirror and did not recognize myself.

It was plain white silk with a high neck, long sleeves and a row of tiny covered buttons down the back.

It was nothing like the ruffled dress I had worn to the altar on Saturday.

I had picked that one for Trenton.

This one I had picked for me.

Miles came in at noon with the guest list in his hand.

He stopped in the doorway.

"Ms. Marchbanks."

"Don't," I said. "Not in this dress. You can say Simone."

"Simone."

He said it slowly, like a word he had never said aloud.

I turned around and held my hair up off my neck.

"The seamstress couldn't do the last buttons. There are thirty. Nan's hands won't work for them."

"I'm not sure that's appropriate."

"I'm not sure anything we're doing is appropriate."

He put the guest list on the arm of the chair and crossed the room.

His hands were cool on my back.

He began at the bottom, one button at a time, very slowly.

I watched him in the mirror.

He did not look up.

He was concentrating so hard that his mouth had gone flat.

"I need to ask you something," I said.

"Ask."

"On Saturday, I'm going to walk down the aisle at four o'clock exactly."

"I won't wait for him. I won't wait two hours for a camera."

"All right."

"I need someone standing at the other end."

His fingers paused on a button at the small of my back.

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