"I..." I start.
"Actually," Saoirse says from the doorway, "I think we have that covered."
She's standing there with something draped over her arm, wrapped in a garment bag that's old and yellowed at the edges. The kind of bag that's been stored carefully for a long time. She walks into the room and lays it across the back of the empty armchair, and when she unzips it, the air leaves my lungs.
I know this dress.
It's ivory silk, simple and elegant, with a fitted bodice and a skirt that flows without being heavy. Delicate lace along the neckline and the cuffs of the long sleeves. A row of tiny pearl buttons down the back. It's not flashy. It's not modern. It's the kind of dress a woman chooses when she wants to feel beautiful.
My mother wore this dress when she married my father.
"How..." My voice comes out broken. I press my hand to my mouth.
"I asked Diomid to bring it when he came," Saoirse says. She sits on the arm of the chair and smooths her hand over the silk. "Your mother showed me this dress the week before her wedding. She was so nervous. Not about your father, never about him. About whether the dress was right." Saoirse smiles."I told her she could wear a bedsheet and Alexei wouldn't notice anyone else in the room."
My eyes are burning. I blink hard and the tears spill anyway, rolling down my cheeks.
"I've checked it over," Saoirse continues gently. "The silk is in beautiful condition. Marina took care of it. The measurements might need a small adjustment here or there, but nothing Iris can't handle with a needle and thread." She looks at Iris, who nods.
"I can do it tonight," Iris says. "Easy."
I get up from the floor and cross to the chair and touch the fabric with my fingertips. It's soft. Softer than I expected, after all these years in storage. I can almost smell her perfume on it, jasmine and bergamot, the scent I used to bury my face in when I was small enough to fit in her lap.
"Saoirse." I can barely get the word out. "Thank you."
She pulls me into a hug, tight and firm, the way my mother used to, and I let myself cry into her shoulder for a minute while the other women pretend to be very interested in the ribbon samples.
"Your mother would want you to have it," Saoirse murmurs against my hair. "She'd want to be part of this day."
When I pull back and wipe my face, Katya is suspiciously red-eyed and blaming it on hormones, and even Tanya is blinking a little faster than usual.
"Right," Grace says, clearing her throat. "That's the dress sorted. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The dress is old. The man is new. The veil is borrowed. What about blue?"
Saoirse reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small velvet pouch. She tips it into her palm, and the sapphire braceletcatches the light, deep blue stones set in delicate silver, glinting like drops of dark water.
The bracelet she sent me for my eighteenth birthday.
"I might have mentioned this to Diomid, too," Saoirse says. "It seemed right."
"Something blue," I say, and my voice is steady now, even if my eyes are still full of tears.
"We’re only missing one thing now..." Iris grins while stretching a lacy garter between her index fingers. It’s the kind of grin that tells me I should be worried.
"Iris," Saoirse warns.
"What? She's going to need lingerie."
"Oh my God," I say, and the laugh that comes out of me is wet and bright and startled.
"I'm serious." Iris is enjoying this entirely too much. "My brother is a lot of things, but he's still a man, and trust me, you want to give him something to short-circuit that brain of his. I'm thinking white. Classic. Maybe a little lace."
"Iris Orlova." Saoirse's voice has the tone of a woman who has been managing this particular child for decades. "We are not discussing your brother's wedding night."
"I'm not discussing it. I'm accessorizing it."
Tanya snorts so hard she chokes on her tea, and Katya thumps her on the back while Grace hides her face in Lorcan's hair to muffle her laughter. Iris sits there looking pleased with herself, and Saoirse shakes her head with the long-suffering patience of a woman who knows she raised this chaos and has no one to blame but herself.
I look around the room at these women. Grace with her gentle warmth and her baby and her color-coded tabs. Katya with her waffles and her sharp tongue and her protective hand on herbelly. Tanya with her dry humor and her quiet efficiency. Iris with her green eyes and her refusal to let anything stay serious for longer than it needs to. Saoirse, holding the center of it all in a way that tells me she always has.
