Our Bridal Shop

Chapter 2 - Alex

In winter, darkness came fast.

Air inside the bridal shop was stuffy. Too much heat coming from the old furnace. Alex would have to do something about that if the seller's sheet required a report of the last three months' utilities. Mama always liked it warm. Said hard nipples and white organza shouldn't happen on the same bride at the same time. The sight of the inventory, hanging like specters in the unlit space pricked tears at the back of Alex's eyes but they never fully formed. They hadn't since, well....

Match Made in Devon sat a stone's throw from the town square. Historic enough to be placed on the registry; proud enough to refuse the honor. Stella Irene was not a woman who took kindly to the strict parameters the historic committee placed on the property that squeezed out all freedom of choice—that included but was not limited to the shade of paint on the doors and trim and columns—phlegm, if Alex was honest; buff, if Charlotte fell in line with what Mama called the color. Half of the second floor's brick façade boasted a weathered oak, wrap-around balcony used for absolutely nothing but hanging twinkle lights in December. Inside, the balcony theme continued with a hole cut out in the upper floor's center, better suited for additional seating in a bar—what it had been before Mama got her harebrained idea—than anything of practicality for bridal couture. The fact that Mama made use of it as a place to advance matrimonial superstition said everything there was to say about the woman. Everything except why she gave a third of the March legacy to the product of her husband's infidelity.

Alex's lungs emptied. She took off her coat and sagged against the counter.

Jesus, Daddy.

The shopkeeper's bell sounded at the door. Charlotte entered, hugging a bundle of papers as if anything in Grant's legal file could atone for leaving them this hot mess. She made a series of declarations to protest the cold, none of them sensical, none of them curses.

"I thought you'd go home," Alex said.

"Do you want me to go home?"

"I want to go home."

"Boston."

"Where else?"

The room, the heat, grew oppressive. The secret was a twenty-pound synthetic-blend gown with meringue sleeves and a never-ending train, crowding out the space, begging to be discussed but so very unpleasant.

"You were ugly back there," said Charlotte. "That's not how we were raised."

"We were raised on lies. You'll forgive me if I forgot to invite Daddy's bastard child over for tea on the verandah."

This time, the door had missed the bell. Freesia stood on the step outside the entry, hands inside her draped pockets, listening, waiting to be invited in, every bit the statue she had been at the cemetery. Charlotte must not have closed the door.

Dammit.

Charlotte's baby pink lips froze in the same muted O as attendees at an outburst at the speak-now part of a wedding ceremony.

Alex wanted to tell Freesia that she was letting in the cold, to close the door—preferably in front of her—but ugly was not something she would be accused of twice in the same meltdown. She didn't know how to bridge the flash flood of dark messages assaulting her mind with words, so she rubbed her hands along her upper arms and aimed for the door. Antique knob in hand, she stepped aside and nodded for Freesia to enter.

Their half-sister moved inside, her chin leveled, her eyes caged, thoughtful, deliberate. She made no move to remove her bag, her coat, her guard; she might have been a still-life painting hanging in a high-end gallery on Newbury Street had Alex not heard her breathing, slowly and evenly, above the wind outside.