Huh. I’ve never really considered my stride, except the few times I’ve been on a runway. And I had no idea Camille notices things like that.
She finds a satin sheath in a beautiful ivory shade that looks pinkish in the right light, but the back is completely bare and dips so low in the front that it might be difficult to keep up.
“Mom wouldn’t go for this one,” I say aloud as I study myself in the mirror.
“Your mom?” Sophie looks at me strangely. Yes, we are back to being best friends again, but I’ve never mentioned my mother to her. She missed that part of my life, and even though she knows what happened, she doesn’t know how it felt.
How it still feels.
I catch my breath because I never meant to say that out loud. “I mean—”
“It must be hard, knowing your mother won’t see you like this,” Camille says in a soft voice. “I know it was for me.”
I turn to my sister-in-law. “And you were by yourself,” I realize. “That would have been horrible.”
Camille’s lips quirk. “Well, I was marrying your brother, so it wasn’t all that bad.”
“Do you ever…?” I pause. I don’t know why I never thought of talking to Camille about this before. She lost her mother, so she must have some understanding of how this is for me. “Does it ever feel like she’s…there?” I ask in a whisper. “Your mother?”
“Of course. There’s a bird on Miquelon that always makes me think of her when I see it.”
“Was it her favourite bird?”
“No, she hated it.” Camille smiles, but there’s a sadness in her eyes. “She would complain about it every time she saw it. It makes me laugh when it’s around, and I like to think that’s what she would want. For me to laugh instead of crying.”
“My mom definitely would want that. When I hear different songs, I think of her. But being here, trying to find a ‘husband’—” I use air quotes around the word because I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s what I’m looking for. “I’ve been thinking of her a lot more.”
“It’s something you’d want your mother around for,” Camille agrees, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Yeah.”
Sophie is quiet through this exchange, since she still has her mother, however unpleasant a person she might be. “Lyra? Look at this one.”
She’s holding a white dress with ruffles like a flapper’s dress, but it’s the one on the rack beside it that grabs my attention. “Yes, but this one.” I snatch it from the rack and hold it against myself.
“Definitely try that one on,” Camille instructs.
“Your mother would think it’s perfect,” Sophie adds.
It takes a bit to get into it, but finally, with Alexa’s help, I stand in front of the three-way mirror in the dress.
And it might well be “The Dress.”
“I think I found it,” I whisper. Alexa has run off to find a headpiece that would go with the dress, Sophie went to find a bouquet, and Camille has gone to find Odin, so I’m alone with the moment.
I haven’t had too many moments like this since I’ve been here.
“What do you think?” I ask my mother. I know she’s not here, but she should be. Maybe not here, on the set of The Suitorette, but if this were real life, she should be with me.
And it… it hurts my heart that she’s not.
I take a few deep breaths because tears are threatening and the last thing I want is to be found crying over a dress.
It’s not as easy as it should be, taking a deep breath in this dress. Strapless heavy satin hugs my torso; a sharp, upward-pointing fabric accent marked the straight neckline.
Just below my hips, six strips of silvery white tulle fall in ruffles, almost completely covering the satin.
“Strict at the top, party at the bottom,” I say to my reflection. I want to smile; I want to jump up and down with delight that I am wearing such a beautiful, perfect dress, but the sadness is there, too strong for me to ignore.
