Chapter 2 - THE DRESS WASN’T THE FIRST THING IDA HAD DESTROYED
The wedding ended beautifully.
Not perfectly.
Beautifully.
Those are different things.
But three days later, while we were opening cards at home, Glen found an envelope with no return address.
Inside was a note from his cousin Rachel.
I need to tell you something about your mom. The dress wasn’t the first thing.
My stomach tightened.
Rachel came over that evening.
She looked nervous.
“I should’ve told you earlier.”
“What happened?”
Rachel looked at me.
“Remember Lily’s Christmas stocking?”
I did.
Two years earlier, I had made matching stockings for all three of us.
Lily’s disappeared before Christmas morning.
Ida claimed the dog must have dragged it somewhere.
There had been no dog in the house that year.
Rachel whispered:
“I saw Aunt Ida throw it in the outside trash.”
Glen’s face went blank.
“What else?”
Rachel started crying.
She listed them.
A framed school photograph of Lily that disappeared from Glen’s parents’ house.
A handmade Father’s Day card Glen never received because Ida tore it up.
A little charm Lily gave Glen that Ida told everyone had “fallen off his keychain.”
None of those things had seemed important separately.
Together?
A pattern.
Ida had been erasing Lily symbol by symbol.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Anything representing permanence.
Anything suggesting Lily had a legitimate place beside Glen.
The wedding dress had simply been the first time she became bold enough to destroy something she knew we would immediately notice.
Glen sat at the kitchen table with both hands over his face.
“I kept calling her comments harmless.”
I said nothing.
“She was never harmless.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Why didn’t you make me see it?”
The question hurt.
Then I answered honestly.
“I tried.”
He closed his eyes.
That was worse.
May you like
Because he knew I was right.
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