Ten Years Ago
Grace
The afternoon of the wedding, Mother left to pick up my bouquet and I took the opportunity to get dressed on my own.
She’d picked out my gown weeks before, and I hadn’t bothered to have it tailored.
It was more of a sheath than a dress, covering me from shoulders to toes in white linen.
I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, but I’d had neither the energy nor the desire to go dress shopping.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I saw how hollow my cheeks were, how many new little lines had appeared around my eyes. Worry lines. Unhappiness lines.
And I was only twenty-two.
It had been weeks since I left the house, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle being out for the hours it would take to execute our plans.
Execute.
It did feel like an execution of sorts. I did my best to shrug off that idea while I put on makeup, attempting to hide the dullness of my skin, the darkness beneath my eyes.
I tried to think of happier things: Nick living with me in the house next door; getting a little bit more autonomy once I was well; and, especially, Nick and I finally having sex.
He can’t say no on our wedding night, I told myself. He won’t be able to keep his hands off me.
Thinking of being close to Nick brought a flush to my cheeks and I smiled, adding a layer of cream blush over the natural colour. I heard the front door open, and my stomach clenched. Mother was back.
I rushed to add a bit of liner to the corners of each eye.
“Graciously,” Mother called, her voice approaching as I swiped on mascara, “it’s time to go, lovey.”
She came into my room without knocking, brandishing a large bouquet of lilies—the exact flower I’d asked her not to get. My throat tightened. If I held that bouquet, I’d be sneezing throughout the ceremony and my sinuses might end up infected.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, staring at my face in the mirror, “you’ve put on so much makeup, Graciously. I don’t think there’s any need to paint yourself up today. Let’s just scale this back a bit.”
She set the flowers down and approached, eyeing me. I held up a hand, hoping to fend her off.
“I’m not painted up, Mother. And I asked you to get roses, not lilies. You know what lilies do to me.”
She sighed. “I know, Graciously, but the florist screwed up the order, and this was all he had in white.”
“I’d take any colour of roses over lilies.” I stood with a wince, my joints protesting. “Take me to the florist. We can exchange those and—”
“There’s no time for that,” Mother said, grabbing a pack of makeup wipes. “Here, let’s get some of that blush off, at least. It’s just too much.”
I stepped back, turning my face away from her questing hand. There was no way she’d take my makeup and my flowers.
“Let me put some on you, Mother.”
She paused, the wipe hovering near my face. I saw the moment her eyes softened.
“Here,” I gestured her onto the chair in front of the mirror, “let’s give you a bit of extra sparkle, shall we?”
Mother nodded, turning her beautiful eyes to her reflection. Although her hair was thin enough to show her scalp, her features were un-creased and lovely. I used some well-placed highlighting and contouring to enhance them, making her appear even younger.
“You know,” I murmured, applying mascara to her lashes, “we could look into getting you a wig sometime. Especially for big occasions, there’s nothing wrong with—”
She slapped the mascara out of my hand. I stepped back, but not quickly enough. The tube fell against my dress on its way to the floor, leaving a black smear on my waist. I bit back a groan.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Mother hissed, diving down to retrieve the mascara. “Might as well throw this out. And the flowers, too, since they’re no good.”
She walked out of my bedroom and I stared at the smear on my dress. My eyes were heating. I grabbed the makeup wipe Mother had threatened me with and dabbed at the stain. I succeeded in turning it from black to watery grey, then I moved the sash around to hide the worst of it.
Taking a long step back, I stared into the mirror. The woman there looked like a bride, no doubt, though an unhappy one. I tried to smile, thinking about Nick, about moving out of Mother’s house. About our wedding night.
There: a happy bride stood in the mirror, the stain on her dress nothing more than a shadow, a trick of the light.
Mother’s loud sobs seeped through the thin walls, but I walked past her bedroom.
She’d come out soon enough on her own. No sense apologising yet.
Instead, I went out to the front steps, where star jasmine grew in abundant clusters under the living room windows.
I picked a few bunches, which I wove together with a hair tie. Perfect.
I turned, keen to show Mother—and froze. She was standing right behind me. She appeared to have calmed down, and I noted that the freshly-applied makeup was still pristine, despite her sobs.
“Here,” I said, holding up the flowers. “All set. Shall we get going?”
“If I’d known you wanted weeds, I’d have saved myself the money for the lilies.”
“Did you really throw them out?”
“I put them in my room. Better that than wasting them.”
“Okay.”
She helped me to the car, her rough hand on my elbow.
I shook her off, my joints aflame with the bend and stretch it took to get myself seated.
Mother huffed, then drove us to the registry office in stony silence.
With the exception of our dresses and the star jasmine, it felt like an errand on a regular day.
I tried to keep that in mind as my heart sped, knowing I was about to change my life for good.
Nick stood outside the office, speaking to someone whose back was turned. His brother, most likely. I braced myself to get out of the car, but Mother didn’t wait. She crossed the parking lot, heels clicking, almost running to embrace Nick—the man with his back to me.
I realised with a swooping feeling that I’d been mistaken: the man looking at me was not my fiancé.
As Mother and Nick chatted together, the stranger wearing Nick’s face made his way towards where I sat in the car.
Remembering myself, I opened the door only to lean back when he bent down and offered me his hand.
I hesitated, staring up at someone who looked like Nick, but whose hard jaw and flat eyes made him nothing like his twin.
“Grace,” he said, reaching down and taking my hand.
I expected him to pull me out of the car; instead, he leaned forward, crowding me against the passenger seat. I felt myself trembling as his face split into a dangerous grin.
“Don’t you remember me, little heart?”