Vanessa exhaled.
“I knew what?”
“You knew Grandma finished it for Saturday.”
“Maya, the dress was never appropriate for the event.”
“It’s my dress.”
“It is a sentimental object that everyone has been treating like a religious artifact for three weeks.”
Lillian took a step forward.
“My daughter designed it.”
“And my husband paid for half the fabric fifteen years ago. Do we want to discuss ownership?”
Maya recoiled.
Lillian’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
Vanessa laughed.
“No, I am tired of being careful.”
She pointed toward the gown.
“I am tired of this house stopping every time Camille’s name is mentioned. I am tired of every holiday becoming a memorial. I am tired of being told how Camille decorated the Christmas tree, what Camille cooked, what Camille wore, where Camille sat.”
Maya stared at her.
Vanessa continued before she could stop herself.
“And I am tired of a child using a dead woman to overrule every decision I make.”
Maya’s face crumpled.
Lillian moved immediately.
“Enough.”
But Vanessa was too angry now.
Too far inside the argument she had been having silently for almost two years.
“She is fourteen years old and thinks grief is permission to do whatever she wants.”
“I wanted to wear my mom’s dress.”
“You wanted to embarrass me.”
Maya blinked.
“What?”
“At the gala.”
“It’s my school gala.”
“And who is sponsoring the event?”
Maya did not answer.
Vanessa’s image-consulting company had recently become one of the corporate sponsors for St. Catherine’s annual Founders Ball.
Vanessa had arranged for photographers.
Influencers.
A feature in Boston Style Quarterly.
She had spent weeks planning what the family would wear.
Maya’s refusal had become, in Vanessa’s mind, a public challenge.
“I bought you a custom gown,” Vanessa said.
“I said I didn’t want it.”
“You said it looked like something a politician’s wife would wear.”
Lillian almost smiled.
Maya did not.
“It did.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
“The pink dress looks childish.”
“My mom made it.”
“Your mother started it when you were six. You are not six.”
Maya’s tears finally fell.
“She made it for when I was old enough.”
“She never finished it.”
“Grandma did.”
Vanessa looked at Lillian.
“Exactly.”
Something in the word changed the room.
Lillian understood before Maya did.
“This was never about the dress.”
Vanessa stared.
“What does that mean?”
“You hate that Camille can still give Maya something.”
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“That is absurd.”
“You can buy whatever you want.”
Lillian gestured toward the black handbag.
“Cars. Bags. Clothes. Vacations.”
Then she touched the ruined pink tulle.
“But you cannot compete with a mother who made something with her own hands.”
Vanessa’s face flushed.
Maya whispered, “You did this because you’re jealous of Mom?”
“No.”
But the answer came too quickly.
Maya stepped backward.
That was when footsteps sounded in the hall.
Heavy.
Male.
Fast.
Vanessa turned.
Marcus Brooks entered the doorway.
He was forty-two, tall, broad-shouldered, and still dressed in the black shirt and trousers he had worn to an afternoon meeting downtown. His coat was folded over one arm.
He had returned almost three hours earlier than planned.
Behind him stood his assistant, Nora Bell, who had driven him home because his car remained at the office garage.
Marcus took in the room.
Maya crying.
Lillian rigid with anger.
Vanessa holding enormous scissors.