CHAPTER 5
Wren
◆
The chapel held the heat outside like it had taken a vow.
Wren stepped through the limestone arch and stopped just inside the doors while August pressed its palm against her back.
The aisle ahead lay narrow and pale between rows of old wooden pews.
Beeswax softened the air. Old hymnals breathed paper dust from their racks.
The stone kept a blue coolness in its walls, and for one foolish second she let herself stand inside it without counting anything.
Then her thumb found the folded receipt in her pocket.
Ribbon: discounted. Wire: discounted. Two bundles of stems she could dress up if nobody looked too closely at the plastic gloss near the leaves.
Old stock, then.
She had bought the cheaper ribbon from a bin near the back of Junie Mabry's feed store that morning, after counting Paloma Reyes's advance against gas, groceries, and the minimum payment she still could not make.
Paloma's preferred ribbon had been creamy and thick.
Wren's came on dented cardboard spools, one edge stiff and the color half a shade too yellow.
She could make it work. Years in Austin had taught her how to turn bad lighting, wrong chairs, and impossible budgets into something people photographed from the right angle. A cheap ribbon was a design problem, not a confession.
"You came in here and got quiet," Della Calloway called from the front of the chapel. "That either means you love it or you found six things wrong."
Wren let the door ease shut behind her. "Those are not mutually exclusive."
Della stood beneath the simple wooden cross, bright in a cotton dress that had probably looked easy until Wren noticed the careful pressing at the hem. Beside her, Ruston Farke held a notebook as if it were a gate he had been trusted to keep closed.
"Five things wrong," Wren said, walking down the aisle. The boards gave a soft, familiar complaint under her sandals. "The sixth depends on whether the bell rope stair is decorative or still trying to kill people."
Della pointed at her. "This is why I needed you here."
"For structural pessimism?"
"For noticing where people will trip before my grandmother says she told us so."
At the mention of Sudie Crane, Wren's shoulders made a small adjustment she hoped nobody saw.
Sudie had sent a message through Della before breakfast: come by the cottage after the chapel and bring down the old ribbon boxes from the attic.
No explanation. Sudie did not waste words when an order would do.
Wren reached the first pew and ran two fingers along its end cap.
The wood had been polished by generations of hands until the grain shone.
Eight years ago, she had sat in the back row and watched Colt Duvane stand two pews ahead of her with his hat in his hands, both of them trying not to look back.
She pulled her hand away before the memory could make itself useful.
"All right," she said. "Walk me through it."
Della exhaled like she had been waiting for permission to be nervous. "Flowers first. Paloma says the chapel does not need much because it already looks like itself, but people will stare at every empty corner."
"People will stare at you," Wren said. "The empty corners can recover privately.
" She took the notebook from Ruston and scanned Paloma's elegant slant.
"Two arrangements at the front, low enough not to fight the cross.
Small sprays on every third pew. Aisle markers tied with ribbon. No loose petals."
Della pressed her lips together. "Mama said loose petals are traditional."
"Mama thinks anything inconvenient becomes tradition if she says it in the right dress."
Ruston coughed once into his hand.
Della's smile broke, quick and guilty. "Do not make me laugh about her. She has opinions on unity candles, hymn placement, and whether the aisle bows should be satin."
Wren's fingers tightened around the notebook. Satin. Fresh, expensive satin, creamy enough to satisfy Odette's sense of a wedding that reflected well on the family instead of a wedding that reflected Della. The cheap spools waited in Wren's tote by the door.
"Satin would be too formal in here," Wren said, lifting her gaze to the limestone. "The chapel has texture. Beeswax, wood grain, old paper, stone. If the ribbon is too smooth, it will look imported. We need something softer."
It was true. Conveniently true. The best kind of lie.
Della looked around as if testing the idea against the room. "Softer."
"Almost weathered. Like it belongs here."
Ruston nodded once. "That sounds right."
The approval should have settled her. Instead, Wren felt the receipt against her thigh like a live coal. She had made a professional decision inside a budget, but shame had its own arithmetic.
She turned a page. "Reception list."
Ruston moved closer, the floorboards creaking beneath him. "Pasture side is still the plan. Tables near the oaks, food closer to the road, dancing on the boards Fletch Calloway said he could lend. We need a confirmed count for chairs."
"And shade," Della said. "And fans. And a way to keep Mama from rearranging every table assignment in the name of flow."
"Put her near someone she wants to impress," Wren said. "She will stay seated longer."
Ruston looked between them, patient but alert. "Storm backup."
The phrase changed the air. In Dusthallow, nobody trusted a dry week.
Wren walked to the side door and looked out across the chapel yard.
The land beyond rolled rough and working, fences cutting the grass into practical lines.
The chapel had been built on the edge of all that labor, close enough for boots to bring in red dust.
"If it storms, we move the reception inside the chapel hall," Wren said. "Food comes through the side door, not the front. Aisle flowers transfer to the hall windows. Front arrangements stay put because moving them will look panicked. Chairs stack against that wall after the ceremony."
Della stared at her. "You do that so fast."
Wren checked the list. "It is easier when it is someone else's disaster."
The words landed harder than she meant them to. Della's expression softened, and Wren hated that more than teasing. Her sister had a wedding in less than three weeks. She did not need Wren's failed engagement, lost job, or bank balance wandering into the aisle.
Wren drew a box around the storm notes and made her voice brisk. "Who has the key to the chapel hall?"
"The clerk," Ruston said. "I can get it."
"Good. Get it before rehearsal week. We need to know if the outlets work and whether the tables are still stacked behind that cabinet."
Della leaned her hip against the first pew. "I thought you were doing flowers."
"Flowers touch everything."
Ruston's gaze moved to the chapel doors. "Colt said the same thing about keeping Beau out of wedding errands. If everything touches everything, the routine holds or the child pays for adult planning."
Wren kept her eyes on the notebook. Colt's name did not enter a room quietly for her. Even spoken in Ruston's level voice, it struck the old place in her chest built around absence and anger.
"He is right," she said.
Della studied her, but Wren did not look up.
Ruston went on, unaware or polite enough to pretend. "He dropped off a crate of old hymnals from storage yesterday, then said he could not bring Beau around today. Preschool, pickup, supper. Bedtime early because she had a hard time after the last late evening."
The image came before Wren could stop it: Colt checking the time, Colt making a schedule hold because a five-year-old needed predictability more than adults needed convenience. She had known him at nineteen, restless and stubborn. She had not known him as a father.
"Good," she said again, because there was nothing dangerous about approving a schedule. "Beau should not have to orbit this wedding just because the rest of us are."
Della's expression flickered. Ruston looked at Wren with a steadiness that did not pry.
"I'll get the key," he said. "And the chair count."
"And the outlets," Wren reminded him.
"And the outlets."
He kissed Della's temple, simple as breathing, then stepped into the white blaze of noon. Della watched him go with an expression Wren had once made fun of in other women, entirely certain it would be safe to be seen wanting someone.
"Do you like the flower plan?" Della asked.
"I do."
"Do you like the ribbon plan you are hiding from me?"
Wren's pen stopped.
Della's voice stayed gentle, which made it worse. "You keep touching your pocket. If Mama texted you, tell me now."
"Odette has not texted."
"You called her Odette."
"She behaves better as a public figure."
Della waited.
Wren could have told her. I bought cheaper ribbon because I cannot afford the right kind. I lost more than a fiance in Austin. I am calculating whether gas counts as an emergency or a luxury.
But Della's wedding dress had been fitted yesterday. Della had earned one season of joy.
"I found ribbon that fits the chapel better than satin," Wren said. "Mama will call it rustic, which means she will hate it until someone else compliments it."
Della narrowed her eyes. "That is plausible."
"I trade in plausibility."
"Wren."
The chapel door opened before Wren had to answer. Ruston leaned in, hat brim shadowing his face. "Sudie is at the cottage. Said if Wren does not fetch those ribbon boxes soon, she will do it herself and complain about her hip until the wedding."
Della straightened. "She would, too."
Wren handed the notebook back. "Then I should rescue everyone's afternoon."
"I'll come with you," Della said.
"You have a reception list."
"I also have a grandmother who keeps old things in places nobody under seventy should climb."
Wren glanced toward the tote by the doors. "Fine. But if the attic defeats me, you are not allowed to write that into the wedding program."