I dropped everything and ran upstairs.
Lily stood frozen in front of the open closet, both hands covering her mouth.
“Mommy,” she sobbed, “someone broke my dress.”
My body went cold.
The dress I had spent months crocheting had been ripped apart.
It hung from the hanger like a tangled web, dark stains spread across the white fabric.
This wasn’t an accident.
Someone had deliberately destroyed it.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no.”
“Why would someone ruin it?” Lily’s voice broke. “I was going to scatter the petals. You said I could.”
I pulled her against me.
Her little shoulders shook.
“I know, baby. I know you were. This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
But even as I held her, one name burned through my mind.
Ida.
I remembered the way she’d stared at the dress.
I remembered her asking, “That’s for the girl?”
And I remembered her excusing herself to use the washroom before leaving the previous night.
I photographed the ruined dress.
Glen needed to see exactly what had happened.
Then I called Ida.
She answered on the second ring.
“Well, good morning. Is something the matter?”
“You know exactly what’s the matter, Ida. Lily’s dress. The one I spent months making. It’s destroyed.”
She made a small, satisfied sound that was almost a laugh.
“Oh… that.”
“You did this. You came into my home and ruined an eight-year-old child’s dress.”
“What did you expect?” Ida snapped, all the sweetness draining out of her. “I told Glen this would happen. I warned him.”
“She’s a little girl! She did nothing to you. Nothing.”
“She is not our blood,” Ida hissed. “And that’s the end of it. This wedding isn’t happening. I’ll make sure of that.”
I looked down at Lily.
She stared back at me through wet, confused eyes.
Something inside me hardened.
“You listen to me,” I said quietly. “You can hate me all you want. But you crossed a line the moment you made my daughter cry.”
“YOUR daughter.” Ida practically spat the words. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Yours.”
“Her name is Lily. And she is the kindest, gentlest—”
“Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t belong in my family. Glen will see that eventually. When he does, he’ll thank me for this.”
“You really think destroying a dress is going to stop the wedding?”
“I think,” Ida said coldly, “that you’ll walk into that church today and find no groom waiting.”
The words hit me like a stone.
“My son knows where his loyalties lie,” she finished with a smile in her voice.
“Glen wouldn’t do that to me.”
Even as I said it, doubt crept in.
Ida laughed softly.
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