Chapter 4: The Shower

Daphne's bridal shower was in the parish hall of St. Brendan's, under forty pink balloons.

Mom had put it on my calendar in March, with a note that said bring the good cake stand.

I did not bring the cake stand.

I walked in at two-fifteen in the red dress, with my hair down and my heels loud on the linoleum.

Sixty women turned around at once.

I had known most of them since I was six.

They had taught my Sunday school class and brought casseroles to my grandmother's funeral.

The oldest woman on the altar guild put her hand over her heart.

"Oh, Veda, honey," she said. "We heard."

"I'm sure you did."

Daphne sat at the head table in a white dress and a plastic tiara, opening a gift bag.

Around her neck was Nana's pearl necklace.

I stopped moving.

It was a single strand of small gray-white pearls, each one knotted in silk.

It had lain on my grandmother's collarbone every Sunday of my childhood.

Nana had died when I was twenty-two.

At the reading of her will, in the lawyer's front room, she had left me exactly one thing.

"For Veda, who sits beside me," the lawyer had read. "She will know why."

Mom had said she would keep it safe until my wedding.

I got married. I never saw it again.

I walked the length of the hall with all those women watching and stopped in front of the head table.

"Hi, Daph."

"Veda." Her smile went tight. "You look... a lot."

"Take them off."

"I'm sorry?"

"Nana's pearls. They're mine."

Daphne's hand flew to her throat.

"Mom gave them to me. For the wedding."

"Mom had no right."

"You're being weird," Daphne said, louder, for the room. "She's on medication, everybody. She doesn't know what she's saying."

Somewhere behind me a chair scraped.

My mother came across the hall fast, with her church smile pasted on and her heels clicking.

"Veda, sweetheart, let's go sit and have a nice cup of tea."

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