Chapter 11: The Fitting

The bridesmaid dress was the color of weak tea, and it was one size too small.

I stood on a velvet box in a bridal shop with a seamstress pinning my waist.

Roz sat on a white sofa, glowing in her veil.

My mother sat beside her with a tissue.

Her fiancé's mother sat on the other side, with her pearl earrings and her gray curls and a tiny cup of tea.

Nobody had said anything about Roz standing at my door with a phone raised.

Nobody had said a word about the hardware store.

Ewan had forwarded me last night's messages from the chat.

My father had told everyone the scene at the counter was a "stress episode."

Roz had written, "Be gentle. Smile. Let her talk."

So I stood on the box and I smiled.

"Imogen, you look beautiful," my mother said, and her eyes filled.

"Thank you."

"I just want you to know we're all so proud of how you're coping."

"Coping."

"After the week you've had." She dabbed at her face.

"Your father and I have been so worried. We spoke to a doctor, and she said that with your history, a little rest."

"I don't have a doctor who knows me, Mom."

"Sweetheart."

"I don't have a history, Mom."

She looked at Roz, and Roz looked at the carpet with soft, sad eyes.

The seamstress, a woman in her sixties with pins in her mouth, kept her face very carefully blank.

"Mom," I said, pleasantly. "What's the name of your medication?"

"What?"

"The one I send six hundred dollars a month for. What's it called?"

My mother's tissue stopped.