Chapter 1: The Woman in White
“Please, Sylvia. Not another inch. I’m begging you.””
My mother’s voice was so quiet that, for one terrible second, I thought I had imagined it.
Then I heard the scissors.
Snip.
A silver lock of my mother’s hair drifted onto the white carpet.
Snip.
Another fell beside her trembling shoe.
I stood in the bridal suite doorway, still wearing my wedding dress, my bouquet clutched so tightly that the rose stems pierced my palm. Twenty minutes remained before I was supposed to walk down the aisle and marry Daniel Whitmore, the man I had loved for three years.
Inside the room, my mother sat helplessly in a velvet chair while a woman in a white wedding gown stood behind her, calmly cutting her hair.
The woman was Sylvia Whitmore.
My future mother-in-law.
She held a pair of silver scissors in one hand and a section of my mother's gray hair in the other. Her expression was almost pleasant, like a woman trimming dead leaves from a garden.
“Oh, don't move, Margaret,” Sylvia said.
“You'll make me cut unevenly.””
My mother flinched.
“Please,” she whispered again.
“My daughter is getting married today.””
“Exactly.”” Sylvia lifted another section of hair.
“And we cannot have you looking like you've wandered in from a nursing home. These photographs will last forever.””
Something inside me went cold.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?””
My scream shattered the silence.
Sylvia turned.
For the briefest moment, surprise crossed her face. Then she smiled as if I had arrived precisely when she expected me to.
“Emily, darling. You're early.””
I rushed into the room.
My mother looked up at me, and I barely recognized her.
Her carefully curled silver hair, the hair she had spent an hour arranging that morning, had been hacked into uneven patches. One side hung near her ear. The other had been cut almost to the scalp. Loose strands clung to the shoulders of her lavender dress.
Her eyes were red.
She wasn't sobbing. She wasn't shouting.
She was crying silently, the way she had cried when my father died and she thought I was asleep upstairs.
“Mom.””
I dropped my bouquet.
The flowers hit the carpet with a soft, sickening thud.
My mother tried to stand, but her knees buckled. I caught her before she fell and wrapped my arms around her.
“Who did this?”” I whispered, although I already knew.
She pressed her face against my shoulder.
“I'm sorry, sweetheart.””
Those three words nearly broke me.
She was apologizing.
My mother, who had worked two jobs after my father died, who had sold her wedding ring to pay my college tuition, who had spent the previous six months helping me plan this day, was apologizing to me for having her hair cut against her will.
I turned toward Sylvia.
She was examining the scissors as though she were deciding whether they needed sharpening.
“Put those down.””
Sylvia raised an eyebrow.
“Don't speak to me like that in my son's wedding suite.””
“YOU CUT MY MOTHER'S HAIR!””
“I corrected it.””
“You held her down?””
“I did no such thing.”” Sylvia glanced at my mother.
“Margaret was being dramatic. She kept jerking her head around.””
My mother shook her head.
“I asked her to stop,” she whispered.
Sylvia's smile disappeared.
“Margaret, please. We have already discussed this. You agreed your appearance needed improvement.””
“No,” my mother said.
It was the first time she had spoken loudly.
“No, Sylvia. I never agreed.””
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Sylvia placed the scissors on the dressing table and folded her hands.
“Emily, your mother has been making a spectacle of herself all morning. She insisted on wearing that dreadful dress, refused the stylist's suggestions, and then complained when I tried to help.””
I stared at her.
My mother had chosen that lavender dress because my father had once told her the color made her eyes look like the sky after rain. She had shown it to me weeks ago, smiling shyly as she turned in front of her bedroom mirror.
She had looked beautiful.
She still looked beautiful.
Sylvia had simply decided that my mother's beauty was inconvenient.
“You're leaving,” I said.
Sylvia blinked.
“Excuse me?””
“Get out of this room.””
She laughed once, sharply.
“I'm the groom's mother.””
“And she's my mother.””
I pointed toward the door.
“Get out.””
Before Sylvia could answer, the door flew open.
Daniel rushed inside, his black tuxedo jacket unbuttoned and his bow tie hanging loose around his neck.
“Emily? What's happening? I heard shouting—”
He stopped.
His gaze moved from me to my mother, then to the scattered silver hair across the carpet.
Finally, he looked at Sylvia.
She held his eyes.
Something passed between them.
It was so quick that another person might have missed it. A tiny tightening around his mouth. A slight movement of her chin.
But I saw it.
And then Daniel did the last thing I expected.
He said nothing.
“Daniel,” I whispered.
He stared at his mother.
“Daniel, tell her what she did is wrong.””
His jaw flexed.
Sylvia stepped toward him, smoothing the front of his jacket with her free hand.
“Darling, your bride is upset. I was only helping her mother look presentable.””
Daniel swallowed.
“Mom, maybe you should—”
“Should what?”” Sylvia interrupted.
“Apologize for trying to save your wedding photographs from becoming a family embarrassment?””
My mother's fingers tightened around mine.
I looked at Daniel.
“Please. Just tell her to leave.””
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The man who had promised to protect me, who had knelt beside my hospital bed when I had surgery two years earlier, who had held me while I cried over my father's grave, stood three feet away while his mother humiliated mine.
And he was afraid to challenge her.
Or worse.
He didn't want to.
A new voice came from the doorway.
“Emily, don't let anyone leave this room.””
My maid of honor, Rachel Bennett, stood there holding her phone. Her face had gone pale, but her eyes were blazing.
She looked at my mother.
Then at the scissors.
Then at Daniel.
“Call the police,” Rachel said.
“And stop this wedding.””
Sylvia let out an incredulous laugh.
“Who exactly do you think you are?””
Rachel lifted her phone.
“Someone who knows what you did before you walked in here.””
Daniel's face drained of color.
For the first time since entering the room, he looked genuinely terrified.
Not angry.
Not embarrassed.
Terrified.
“Rachel,” he said quietly.
“Don't.””
She stared at him.
“You knew?””
He took one step toward her.
“Please. Not here.””
Rachel's hand began to shake.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“You really did know.””
I felt my stomach drop.
“What does she mean, Daniel?””
He looked at me, and I searched his face for the man I thought I knew.
Instead, I saw a stranger trying desperately to calculate how much truth he could afford to tell.
Sylvia suddenly reached for Rachel's phone.
Rachel jerked it away.
“Touch me again,” she snapped, “and the police will have another reason to arrest you.””
Then Rachel turned the screen toward me.
There was a photograph on it.
A photograph of Sylvia standing beside Daniel outside a courthouse, taken three weeks earlier.
And between them, held in Daniel's hand, was a document bearing my full name.
My wedding dress suddenly felt too tight around my chest.
“Daniel,” I whispered.
“Why were you at a courthouse with your mother?””
He looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
And the answer he gave changed everything.
“Because if you marry me today, Emily, there's something you need to understand.””
May you like
He glanced at my mother.
“Your family isn't the only family I've been keeping secrets from.””
