He Kept Me Secret Seven Years, Then Proposed to Her novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: The Red Dress Again

My father had swept the workshop floor three times, and he was sweeping it again when I came in at ten.

The benches were pushed against the walls and the saws hung up.

He had set out forty folding chairs in rows and nailed pine boughs along the rafters.

"Dad. It's clean."

"There's sawdust in the corner."

"It's a workshop."

"It's your wedding." He leaned the broom on the vice. "Let me have the corner."

I stood in the doorway in the red dress.

I had put it on at seven, in my old room, in front of the mirror that still had my school photographs stuck in the frame.

It was the same dress, with the same small stain at the hem that would not wash out.

Lydia had stood behind me with the baby asleep on her shoulder, and zipped me up with one hand.

"You can't wear that," she said. "It's the worst night of your life."

"It's the best dress I own, and I bought it for him."

"Is that the reason?"

"Yes. He doesn't get to take it away from me."

She had laughed, and then her face had gone soft, and she'd kissed my cheek.

Now my father looked me over from boots to hair.

He took a long time about it.

"Your mother wore blue," he said.

"I know."

"She'd have said that one suits you better."

"What would you say?"

"That you don't need me to give you away." He cleared his throat. "That you were never mine to give."

"Dad."

"I'd like to walk you in anyway. If it's allowed."

I took his arm.

By eleven the workshop was full.

Maggie had closed the clinic for the day and sat in the second row in a green dress and a cardigan, with the Providence receptionists and my landlady, who had brought her own cushion.

Tom's old students filled the back row, tall boys in jackets that did not fit.

On the groom's side there was one person.

Mrs. Ashworth sat in the front chair in her dove-grey coat, with her handbag on her knees, and a very straight back.

A small number of people from the town had come to stand with her, and I saw her notice them.

Miles waited at the end of the room, at the bench where my father had taught eleven years of boys to measure twice.

His face had gone pale, and when he saw me his hand went up to his mouth.

My father walked me down the aisle between the folding chairs.

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