After Spending Six Months Hand-Sewing My Daughter’s Wedding Dress, I Walked Into The Bridal Suite Just In Time To Hear Her Laugh, “If She Asks, Tell Her It Doesn’t Fit. It Looks Like Something From A BARGAIN RACK.”

to me. She held out the casserole dish like an offering.

“Chicken enchiladas,”
she said. “My grandmother’s recipe. I figured you might not be cooking much this week.”

“How did you” I began.

“called
me?” Gloria said simply three nights ago crying drunk from her hotel room in
Cabo. She told me what happened, what she said about the dress. Her dark eyes
flashed with indignation.

“I wanted to drive over there and slap some sense into her, but Mexico is a little far for
an intervention.”

Despite myself, I almost smiled. “Come in. I was just
making coffee.”

Gloria stepped into my foyer and stopped dead.

her gaze fixed
on the dress displayed across my dining room. Jesus Christ, she whispered, then
clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I mean, holy, is that the dress?

That’s
the dress.” She approached it like a pilgrim approaching a shrine, her fingers hovering inches above the silk. “Mrs. Barnes, this is museum quality work.

The bead work alone. How long did
this take you?”

6 months. 6 months.

She turned to face me. her expression
shifting from admiration to fury. 6 months of your life and she called it thrift store quality in front of that
ice queen mother-in-law.

I found myself nodding, surprised by the relief of having someone, anyone, acknowledge the
enormity of the betrayal. “You know what this reminds me of?” Gloria continued,
circling the dress like an art critic studying a masterpiece. That wedding dress Joy Kavuto wore.

The construction,

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