The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Bridal Shop

At midnight Kendall sent me six photos and no words.

They were screenshots of Holt's phone.

His texts with his mother, from the last two weeks.

Kendall still knew his passcode.

Of course she did.

"Her mother's on board. January, her family's church in Barrington. Do NOT mention the baby until after the honeymoon. Then it's a family adoption, very common, very quiet."

"She's a natural, darling. She has a nursery in her vision board."

"Boston is booked. K. flies the 10th."

The last one was from Holt, sent Saturday night.

"Does she have to know it's mine?"

Marjorie's answer came one minute later.

"Nobody has to know anything. That has always been the point."

I read that one twice, sitting up in bed with Daniel asleep beside me.

Then I called Ruthie, even though it was midnight.

"Your cousin still does alterations at that bridal place on Wayland Square?"

"Why?"

"How fast does a girl from Barrington get her first fitting for a January wedding?"

Ruthie was quiet for a second.

"I'll find out," she said.

She found out by nine.

Thursday, eleven o'clock, the bride and her mother, the big fitting room in the back with the three-way mirror.

The bridal shop on Wayland Square has a white carpet and a little gold bell over the door.

It rang when I walked in on Thursday at ten past eleven.

The woman at the front desk smiled at me, and then she stopped smiling.

She'd seen the video too.

"I'm not here to make trouble for you," I said. "Where's the back?"

Ruthie's cousin, at a sewing table with pins in her mouth, pointed without a word.

The fitting room had velvet curtains and a round platform in the middle.

The girl on it was maybe twenty-five, in an ivory gown with a long train pinned up off the floor.

A seamstress knelt at her hem.

Her mother sat on a cream sofa with a glass of champagne.

I knew her mother.

She'd been at my engagement party, and she'd told me the Thackerys were the best family in Providence.

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