Page 104 of A Love Most Fatal

We stand in her room in front of her tall mirror while the seamstress fixes the hem on the green silk gown, the exact color of the emerald eyes that will haunt me forever.

“Green signifies new beginnings,” she says. “I wore green to my own engagement party.”

“You did?” I’ve never seen pictures of that night, only the wedding where she looked like a goddess with huge, curled hair all over her shoulders.

“I was so nervous,” she says, her eyes dreamy into a near distance. “I grew up watching your father at weddings and parties, he was ten years older than me, practically a prince to me and my friends.”

A smile flits across her lips, and I’m reminded how young she is, fifty-three. She married my dad when she was twenty-two and had Willa right after. Once their parents decided they would be married, Dad wanted to marry her immediately, but she made him wait until she was out of college. Said it was important to be educated, even if she’d never want for anything for the rest of her life.

She didn’t know she would be left wanting for her own husband.

“Any advice?” I ask, because I’ll cry if I keep thinking about how much she misses my father. How much I miss him.

The seamstress pulls tight at the skirt, and then lets it fall, repeats this a few times and adjusts a pin.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mom meets my eyes in the mirror. “You are so much smarter than I was. You have a brilliant head on your shoulders.”

There’s a ‘but’ there, I can feel it.

“Spin,” the man working on my dress says, and I follow his instructions. “Perfect.”

He helps me out of the dress carefully before Mom can continue, and it’s another seven minutes before he’s gone, leaving me and her in the quiet of her room. I used to hide in here when I was a girl, when I was too tired to consider doing another training session with Dad. I would come hide behindtheir curtains, waiting for mom to find me. I wish I could do that now.

“All I want for my babies is happiness,” she says. “My biggest advice is to find a champion for you and hold on as tight as you can until the end of the line.”

She’s talking about Nate, but we both also know that he’s not an option anymore.

“Maxim will be good to me,” I say. “He will love our children and fight to protect them. I think this is as much as I can ask for.”

Her eyes swim with sadness at this.

“Are you sure about this?” she asks.

I turn to face her; I’m wearing her old slip, the one she wore beneath her wedding dress, that Willa wore beneath hers.

“I’m not sure,” I admit, just a whisper, and it’s a weight off my chest to finally say it aloud to someone. “I’m not.”

Mom pulls me to her chest where I don’t cry, but I do stay, holding her and being held, remembering the thousands of times she’s comforted me this way in my life. Like I haven’t let her in years.

“I didn’t realize how lonely I’ve been,” I confess in a whisper. She keeps stroking a hand through my hair and down my back until there’s an imprint on my cheek from where it was pressed against her shirt.

It’s time to keep moving.

“I’m going to marry Maxim.” I sit up to face her again. There are unshed tears pooled beneath her brown eyes that look like mine. “And somewhere along the way, there will be happiness.”

Mom gives my arm one more long squeeze before crossing the room to her armoire and pulling it open to look at her jewelry. After a moment she closes it, retreating with a black felt box I recognize instantly as the object of 40% of my adolescent longings. She pulled out the box for every big event—sometimes letting my sisters and I try it on in front of her bathroom mirror.

Now, she inclines her head to the mirror like she did then, and I gulp before following her there.

Mom pulls out the necklace, and I hold up my hair so she can fasten it on my neck, the thin gold chain holding up a ruby pendant that lies in the middle of my chest.

“Your grandmother gave this to me when I needed it. You need it now, and when there comes a time one of your sisters needs it, you’ll give it to them.”

I touch the stone, bright red and a weight against my skin. A comfort.

“Thank you,” I say, and set my shoulders, lifting my chin.

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