Her Wedding Dress novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Her Wedding Dress
Autumn finds Lydia in her wedding dress with her ring, hears Clifton say it is for a dying woman, gives it all away, and walks out. In the doorway she finds the dress order slip: it was ordered for Lydia eleven months ago.
At ten past two, in the bridal suite of a downtown hotel, I found Lydia Vandermeer wearing my wedding dress.
I had stepped into the hall for a safety pin.
I came back with the pin and my backup gown over my arm.
She was standing at the mirror in the dress I had chosen.
The pearl buttons ran down her spine.
The lace sleeves were the ones I had touched in the shop.
The gold band Clifton was supposed to slide onto my finger at the altar was on her hand.
A champagne glass with her pink lipstick on the rim sat on the dressing table, next to half a lemon pastry.
She turned around slowly, and her eyes were wet.
"Autumn," she whispered. "Please don't hate me."
Behind her stood my husband in his black tuxedo, with one hand at the small of her back.
My husband, by a county clerk and a signature three months ago.
The man I had loved since I was nineteen, whose baby was pressing against my ribs right then.
Clifton didn't look sorry.
He looked tired, and a little pleading.
"Autumn," he said, gently, the way he talked when he wanted me calm. "Let me explain before anyone sees this."
"You stood in that shop and told me the dress was mine," I said.
"It's one dress, Autumn. Please don't turn it into a scene."
Lydia flinched. "Please don't fight over me. I'll take it off."
She didn't move to take it off.
She looked at Clifton.
"No," he said. "You're keeping it on."
I heard it, and it still took a moment to be real.
"Why?" I asked.
"Lydia is getting sicker."
The makeup artist by the door lowered her brush.
Two bridesmaids, his cousins, looked at the carpet.
They all knew.
Everyone in that room had known except me.
"If this next treatment fails," Lydia said, and her voice cracked in the right place, "this is the only wedding I'll ever have."
"You already have what matters," Clifton told me. "You have my name. You have the certificate. You're carrying my child."
I put my hand on my stomach.
"I have your name," I said, "and nobody has heard it."
"Legally, you're my wife, Autumn."
"Legally," I said.
"Yes," Clifton said.
That was all he thought ten years were worth.
Lydia started to cry harder. "Clifton, maybe I shouldn't. It's her day."
His voice went soft in a way I had begged for since spring. "No. Today is yours."
I looked around the suite.
The flowers were white roses and violets, Lydia's favorites.
The cake was lemon lavender, Lydia's favorite.
The jazz trio I had hired was gone, and a string quartet was playing her favorite French song down the hall.
The coordinator knocked and put her head in. "Mr. Ashdown? They're ready for the processional."
Clifton offered Lydia his arm.
She hesitated just long enough, then laid her hand on his sleeve.
He glanced back at me.
"Sit with my parents during the ceremony," he said. "We'll take family photos after. Don't give people anything to ask about."
"You want me to watch," I said.
"I want you to behave."
That meant quiet.
It meant useful and pregnant and out of sight.
I took one step toward them, and Clifton said, "Don't," because he thought I was going to rip the dress off her.
I could have.
Instead I smiled.
"Keep it, Lydia," I said. "It looks better on you."
I pulled the pin from my hair, and the backup veil slid to the floor.
I turned to Clifton. "You were right. It's only cloth."
His shoulders dropped.
He thought I was giving in.
I stepped closer and looked at her hand.
"And the ring?"
She curled her fingers into her palm.
"Don't start," Clifton said.
"Keep that too," I said. "I won't fight a woman over jewelry when she has to borrow my wedding to feel chosen."
Her face went white.
"Say you're sorry," Clifton said.
"No."
He moved toward me. "Autumn. Say it."
The wedding march started on the other side of the door.
I took my backup gown from the chair, folded it over my arm, and walked toward the door.
He caught my wrist in the doorway, hard.
"If you walk out now, you humiliate me in front of everyone."
I looked at his hand, then at his face.
"You did that to yourself."
I pulled free.
At the doorway I turned around once.
"Congratulations, Lydia," I said. "The aisle is yours. So is he."
Clifton's face changed.
It wasn't anger this time.
It was fear.
In ten years I had walked away from him a dozen times, and every time I had waited to be stopped.
This time I didn't wait.
I walked past the garment rack by the door, and a white card pinned to the bottom of an empty dress bag caught my eye.
It was the bridal shop's order slip, and I had never seen it before.
Bride: L. Vandermeer. Ordered eleven months ago.
I had picked that dress six months ago.
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