“It belonged to my great-grandmother,” Clara said, her voice dropping to a quiet whisper. “She brought it over from Brussels before the war. I was saving it for my own day, but Emily needs this more than I do.”
I touched the edge of the lace with my index finger, amazed by the weight of it, which was as light as a dried leaf. “Clara, this is too precious to give away.”
“Margaret wants us to think we do not have options,” Clara said, checking a notation on her clipboard. “She wants us to feel small. This lace will show her we are not.”
I looked at the delicate patterns of vines and tiny lilies woven into the silk. “Did you find out anything else about her inquiries?”
“She was at the florist this morning,” Clara said, her pencil hovering over her schedule. “She asked the owner if our deposit had cleared yet.”
“She is looking for a weak seam,” I said, rubbing my stiff thumb.
“We are not going to let her find one,” Clara said.
I left Clara at the house with Emily and drove down to the commercial district near the highway. James’s office was located in a modern brick building behind the local bank, where the lawn was perfectly green and watered by automatic sprinklers.
The receptionist let me through to his small, glass-walled office at the end of the hall. James was sitting behind a desk covered in neat stacks of folders, his hand running through his hair as he stared at a computer screen.
He stood up immediately when I entered, pulling out a chair for me. “Rosemary, ma’am, please sit down. Is Emily alright?”
“She is fine, James,” I said, sitting down and smoothing my skirt. “But we need to talk about last night.”
James closed his laptop, his face pale under the fluorescent office lights. “My mother called me this morning. She said she was just driving by to check on the house, but I know her. I know what she is doing.”
“She told someone on the phone that the wedding would never happen,” I said.
James looked down at his desk, his fingers tracing the edge of a plastic pen. “She does not want me to marry Emily, Rosemary. She has made that clear from the very start.”
“Why is she so set against us, James?” I asked. “We have never asked her for a single penny.”
“It is not about the money we do not have,” James said, his voice dropping so low I had to lean forward to hear him. “It is about the money she thinks she can control. But it does not matter what she says or what she tries to do.”
He looked up at me, his eyes steady and clear. “I will be standing at that altar at one o’clock on June twelfth, even if I am the only person on my side of the church.”
“She is your mother, James,” I said.
“And Emily is my future,” he said.
I stood up, feeling a small, sharp spark of hope in my chest for the first time in days. “Then we will make sure she has a dress worthy of that future.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” James said, coming around the desk to press my hand.
