“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.
Pink fabric on the floor.
The mutilated dress.
He did not speak.
Vanessa’s face changed immediately.
“Marcus.”
He looked at her.
Then at Maya.
“What happened?”
Maya tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
Marcus placed his coat on the bench.
He walked toward his daughter.
“Baby?”
She pointed at the dress.
Marcus looked.
He recognized it instantly.
Camille had drawn the first sketch eighteen years earlier when they were newly married.
Not for Maya.
They did not yet have a child.
It had been part of a private collection Camille called Rosewater.
After Maya was born, Camille redesigned it in miniature sketches over the years.
At six, Maya saw the drawing and announced she wanted “the giant pink princess one.”
Camille laughed and promised to make it someday.
She began sewing the bodice during her second round of chemotherapy.
She never finished.
After her death, Lillian packed the unfinished gown away.
This year, when Maya’s school announced that the Founders Ball would include a memorial presentation honoring Camille’s scholarship foundation, Lillian quietly completed it.
Marcus had cried when he first saw Maya try it on.
Now half the skirt lay on the floor.
One side of the bodice had been cut open near the waist.
Pearls were scattered across the carpet.
Marcus looked at Vanessa.
“Who did this?”
She stared at him.
“Marcus.”
“Who?”
Maya whispered, “She did.”
Marcus’s face became unreadable.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“I can explain.”
He looked at the scissors.
“You cut it?”