Little Black Dress with Bonus Material (14 page)

I put on a fresh nightgown and sat on the sofa, my knees pulled to my chest, waiting for Jon to come back, hating the sight of dawn beyond the windows. The sky looked as pink as the watery blood I'd scrubbed from my thighs.

Somehow, I fell asleep on the couch and woke to the sunlight.

Even walking into the bathroom and standing to splash my face caused my whole being to ache. Every part of me felt torn apart, inside and out.

Jon wanted to call Dr. Langston to come and examine me, but I implored him not to ring the office. If I didn't feel my normal self in a few days, I would gladly let him drive me into town for an examination. But I had gone through this twice already.

I didn't need any medication but a little time and space.

Besides, I didn't want anyone to know what had transpired, not yet, especially not my father. When he had remarked the other night after dinner how amazing it was that he could have a grandchild by Christmas, his eyes had lit up in a way I had not seen since Anna's engagement to Davis Cummings. How could I tell him now that it wouldn't happen? How could I take that away?

All I could think was that the dress had deceived me.

Where was the healthy baby I'd held in my arms and what about my sister's words that I was meant to be a mother? Why would it show me something so beautiful when the truth was so cruel?

“We'll be all right,” Jon kept assuring me, and I would nod each time, the gesture meaningless.

After fibbing to my father that I'd caught a bad summer cold, I stayed away from the winery until I was sure the blood—and my tears—had ceased to flow. I'd heard the expression “death warmed over” before, but now I understood all too clearly how it felt. No matter how often Jon assured me that none of the blame for what happened was mine—“maybe fate has another hand to deal us, Evie”—I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with me that my body couldn't keep a baby alive inside it.

It wasn't till the next week that I finally got out of bed and dressed.

Jon kissed me gently before he left for work. “Evie sweet, you're looking pinker in the cheeks,” he said and rubbed my shoulder. “Maybe you'll want to get outside today, sit on the porch for a while before it's too hot. And keep your chin up, okay? No matter what old Doc Langston has said in the past, he doesn't know everything. Hell, he's older than the dirt around here. I think he's wrong about this.”

“Do you really?”

“I do.” He sounded so certain, far more than I could even pretend to be.

I bit my lip, not sure anymore what I believed. I was still too numb to see past that morning. All I wanted was to get through it and this afternoon and this evening and the morning that followed. No longer would I look ahead, expecting so much and receiving so little in return.

Despite the gray beneath my eyes, my cheeks had regained a pinch of color, and my body ached less. I instinctively pressed my hands to my belly, which felt smaller already; although my breasts still seemed swollen. I had loved being pregnant, even the morning sickness, because it reminded me of the child I carried. How could I go through life never knowing that feeling again?

Jon was right. Moving around a bit would probably be better than moping. I put on a T-shirt and a pair of denim cut-offs with the top button open, deciding I would work in the garden. It definitely needed weeding, and the sunlight might shake me out of my doldrums.

For a while, I simply sat on the back porch steps, my cotton gloves on and my spade in hand. My gaze took in everything around me: the towering oaks and maples, the wooded copse to one side and a small hill on the other that nearly obscured the running rows of grapevines. We had dug a small plot for vegetables and another for perennials so I would always have something growing, at least most of the year-round.

I was so proud of our little house and so glad we'd declined to move into the Victorian with Daddy. The cottage had been in shambles three years before when we'd asked my parents if we could reside in it. No one had lived there since my own family when I was a child, before Joseph Morgan had died and we'd moved into the Victorian with Charlotte.

Jon and I had labored deep into the night once the workday was done and from morning until dusk on weekends in order to remove the dirt and dust. We'd replaced rotted floorboards and bad window frames, scraped off faded wallpaper, and added fresh paint, even patched up the roof, until we had turned the place into a real home, a nest where we could escape from the rest of the world.

It was rare when a visitor came down the gravel road to see us, so I wasn't concerned about leaving the house to spend the morning weeding the back garden. When I finally tired of kneeling and bending, I retired my trowel, removed my canvas gloves, brushed off my knees, and brought the broom out to sweep the front porch. That was how I found the woman in the pink dress and floppy hat sitting on my wicker glider. Dappled sunlight flickered through the gingerbread trim on the underside of the eaves, painting the air with flashes of gold and creating a haze around her silhouette. She looked ethereal.

“Hello,” I said and set aside the broom. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes, actually, I'm hoping that you can,” she said and rose from the cushions. Relieved of her weight, the glider swayed and creaked. And carried on the breeze, a sweet and unforgettable scent that teased my nose: lily of the valley.

I didn't recognize her at first, not until she removed her hat and set it on the glider. The dark hair was cut so short she looked boyish; yet even beneath the billowy sundress, I could tell that her body had ripened so she was less a girl and more a woman.

“Dear God, it can't be,” I whispered, sure that I was seeing a ghost.

“Come now, Evie,” she said and smiled at me. “Is that any way to greet your baby sister?”

T
oni awakened to the noise of Greg whistling through his nose from the pillow beside her; the sound enough to send a throbbing pain through her skull. If she didn't know better, she'd say she had a humdinger of a hangover. Only she hadn't touched any alcohol the night before, not even a sip of chardonnay from the Cummings restaurant at their recently rechristened Rolling Hills Winery.

What gives?
she wondered as she raised her fingers from beneath the blankets to massage her pounding temples.

Was it possible she was hungover with shame? That would certainly explain the anxious knot in the pit of her stomach.

Unlike the stoic Evie, Toni had never been good at suppressing her emotions, so it stood to reason that the culprit was pure guilt. Hell, she'd been sitting across the dinner table from Greg while envisioning herself making whoopie with another man. And not just
any
other man, but a younger man, a guy she barely knew from Adam, whose father openly despised her family. Was it any wonder she felt so freaking conflicted?

What's wrong with me?
she wondered, squeezing her eyes shut before gamely opening them again.

Was it possible that lack of sleep and worry over Evie had turned her into a quivering, delusional mess? She'd been dealing with tantrum-throwing brides, demanding mothers, and disinterested grooms on a routine basis for years and years, and she hadn't cracked before.

But this was different. This was worse.

Because even after returning to the Victorian and having sex with Greg, she couldn't shake the memory of herself with Hunter Cummings. Okay, not exactly a memory, because she'd never been with him, not
that
way. But it had seemed so damned real. Why did everything about coming back to Blue Hills unsettle her?

Ever since she'd arrived home, her psyche had gone through the wringer. It was no wonder she'd had a meltdown.

This, too, shall pass,
she tried to reassure herself, something her mother had often said when she was a child crying about broken Barbies or bad grades or boys.
You're tense and tired and a little bit nuts, but you're okay.

She was okay, wasn't she?

Toni was trying hard to look at things rationally, only what she'd thought made sense before seemed completely nonsensical now. She'd gone from being so sure about herself and the world around her to questioning her life and her future. Maybe there
were
ancestral spirits flitting about the Victorian as she felt such a pull from the past, a hint of something missing that made her heart ache in a way it hadn't since her father's death.

Only two days ago, she'd thought she wanted to become Mrs. Gregory McCallum more than anything in the world. For months on end, she'd dreamed of saying “I do,” not because she couldn't imagine herself with anyone else but because it meant no more searching for Mr. Right. No more dismal happy hours, no more awful first dates, no more romantic illusions about finding true love. Toni appreciated that, with Greg, she would be content and comfortable, and, most importantly, not alone.

But that was back in St. Louis in the midst of the Dimplemans' anniversary bash before The Proposal That Wasn't, before she'd learned of her mother's stroke. Now she wasn't so certain what it was she wanted anymore.

Pull yourself together, Antonia,
she chastised, could almost hear Evie's no-nonsense voice instructing.

She couldn't fall apart now.

With a pained sigh, she tucked her hand beneath the pillow and carefully turned on her side.

Across the room, the black dress puddled over the rolled arm of the wing chair where she'd tossed it during her swift seduction of Greg (who would never second-guess why she'd come on so strong; he always seemed grateful to be the beneficiary of her affection). Even in the rawness of morning, with the curtains drawn and hazy light filtering in, the fabric of the dress gleamed, reminding her of shiny scales on a fish. There was something so unnatural about it, like it was a living, breathing being.

She'd taken off her nightgown and put on a black dress, and there were dog-eared photographs scattered around her. She was curled up like a baby. At first I thought she was sleeping
.

Toni recalled Bridget's tale of finding Evie and thought again of last night's incident, and it didn't take long for her to recognize a common bond between them because she was looking right at it.

The dress.

She stared at it solemnly and another rash of gooseflesh tickled her arms and the back of her neck.

What are you?
Toni wondered, because it wasn't like any off-the-rack frock from Saks that she'd ever worn.

Was it the dress that had drawn her mother up to the attic so early on Friday morning? Had it somehow compelled her to take off her nightgown and pull it on? Was there something in the silk, some kind of “fairy dust” that not only cured tattered fabric but made its wearer see things that hadn't happened? And what about the way her skin had tingled and her whole body had hummed, maddeningly in fact, when Hunter had touched her arm?

If any logical explanations existed, they were beyond Toni's grasp. The only answer she could conjure up wasn't one she'd ever say out loud, at least not in the company of rational human beings, not unless she wanted an involuntary vacation at a gated facility with padded rooms and straitjackets.

Sometimes you just have to accept the magic that comes into your life and leave it be.

She should take Bridget's advice and stop analyzing. It wasn't as though the dress could rectify her love life or fix what was wrong with Evie's brain. Those things would take a real miracle.

“Snerk gerk snerk.”

Greg snorted in his sleep, rolled away from her, and pulled the sheets and blanket with him, leaving Toni half-exposed.

The chill that settled over her dispelled further mental meandering, and she tore her gaze from the dress to glance at the alarm clock on the night table. The tiny arms showed half past seven, as if the yellow beams of sunlight poking at her eyes through the shutters and frilly curtains weren't sign enough that it was morning.

Although she wished she could close her eyes and sleep off the headache and heartache, she couldn't. An urge took shape inside her, pressing her to move, to do something she should have already done. It seemed as good a time as any to do it, so she would leave Greg alone to snore for a while.

Carefully, she sat up and swung her legs around the side of the bed, slipping out as quietly as she could. She left the dress on the chair, too afraid to touch it, and snatched up her panties and Greg's rumpled button-down, which happened to be the items of clothing nearest at hand. As she buttoned up the shirt, she tiptoed across the room, wincing as the floorboards creaked beneath her feet. She held her breath, not exhaling until she'd squeezed around the door and pulled it shut with a muted
click
.

She walked up the hallway, her bare legs cold despite the radiators hissing heat. She hesitated only long enough to draw in a deep breath before she opened the door to the third floor, flipped the light switch, and climbed the stairs to the attic.

The last time she'd gone up had been two years ago, when she'd come home after her father had passed away. She'd been unable to sleep and had heard noises, like squirrels scurrying in the eaves above her. Toni had grabbed her robe and wandered up the narrow stairwell only to find Evie rummaging through the maze of boxes, the yellow light cast down by the hanging bulb surrounding her in a cloud of dust motes.

When her mom had spotted her, she'd frowned and said, “Antonia, why are you up at this hour? The funeral's in the morning, and you'll need your rest.”

“Can I help you with whatever it is you're doing?” she'd asked, praying Evie would say yes and prove that she was vulnerable, too. That she needed a hug or a hand to hold or, well,
something
. Toni had wanted so badly to feel needed.

Only her mother had shaken her head. “You can't do anything now, no. So go back to bed. I need to be by myself for a spell.”

As Toni recalled the exchange, she pictured a detail she'd forgotten: Evie had been on her knees, digging inside a flowered hatbox, very much like the one that sat on the worn floorboards just ahead of her. Before she'd left that last time, Toni had, in fact, snuck up to the attic again but couldn't find the box anywhere. Her mother must've buried it deeply under the eaves, behind something equally old and dusty. For all Toni knew, Evie had kept it hidden until the morning of her stroke when she'd come back up and dug it out.

That was where her mother hid her secrets from the world, Toni knew without anyone telling her.

She walked forward beneath the slanting beams, noting the cartons and furniture that had been pushed aside, no doubt moved in haste by the paramedics so they could get to her unconscious mother. She stopped when her feet came upon a spot where a ragged circle had been rubbed clean, free of the dust that seemed to cover everything else.

She pictured Evie there, curled up and helpless. She wanted to reach out, to touch her mother and save her; but it was too late for that. Toni could do nothing more than sit back and wait.

“I wish you hadn't been alone,” she whispered and pushed tangled hair from her face, willing away the image of her mom lying there in the dress, her white skin so deathly pale against the black.

She swallowed hard, thankful again that Bridget had arrived when she had. Too much later, Dr. Neville had said, and Evie might be gone already. Toni wouldn't have had a second chance.

Poor Mama, getting out of her warm bed when it wasn't even daybreak yet, seeking something she'd put away long ago, never knowing what hit her.

Solemnly, she crossed the floor and started to crouch, when she stepped on something that wasn't wood. She reached down, retrieving a faded photograph with a thick white border, its edges slightly curled.

She moved closer to the bare bulb that dangled from the rafter so she could better see. Squinting at the tableau captured on film, she saw two young women, arm in arm, standing in front of a marble statue. She recognized the fair-haired girl easily enough: Evie's nose, her square jawline, and barely-there tight-lipped smile were unmistakable. Her mother linked arms with a dark-haired beauty whose wide eyes glanced away. Her false smile looked equal parts terrified and excited.

The crest on the wall in the background reminded Toni of the foyer in the Blue Hills Country Club. Although the building had been renovated several times in the past forty years, the crest had remained.

She turned the picture over and read the loopy cursive on the back with a date in March some fifty years ago and an inscription:
Me and A. The night that changed everything
.

Yep.
She nodded to herself. That was definitely Evie's handwriting.

Could the “A” be for Annabelle, Evie's younger sister, who had presumably died long ago? Since her mother had never shown her a photo of Anna much less talked about her, she had no idea what her mysterious aunt even looked like. Toni had rarely heard Anna's name mentioned in their house, save for once when her dad had asked Evie something along the lines of “Do you ever miss your sister?” Instead of tearing up and reminiscing, Evie had tightened her mouth and there was a look akin to fear in her eyes. In a clipped tone, she'd replied, “My sister is gone, and that's all there is to it,” and Jon Ashton had lifted his hands in surrender. Wouldn't that have been an odd remark to make if Anna were alive?

What a mismatched pair the two girls in the picture made,
Toni mused, completely captivated by them: one fair and slender and oh-so-serious; the other dark and tiny and strangely luminous. There were similarities of features that she recognized in each—and in herself—like the strong jaw and strong, straight nose.

They had to be Evie and Anna, she decided, feeling it in her bones.
This
was her aunt Annabelle, the woman she'd often thought was a ghost.

Toni felt giddy, light-headed even, sensing a lost connection to the past, to a piece of herself that had always been missing. What she didn't understand was her mother's reluctance to share stories of her growing up. The tales would be even more valuable, wouldn't they, if Anna had passed away before Toni had gotten the chance to know her? Why had Evie never shown her this photo? What had happened between the women? Had Anna done something awful to Evie? Or was Anna's demise too painful for Evie to dwell on?

I want to know,
Toni thought suddenly, and it went beyond mere curiosity. It had to do with her family history and understanding where she came from. If she were to lose her mother, all the memories would die with her. Toni hadn't realized exactly what that meant until now.

“Who are you?” she whispered, studying the shiny square of Kodachrome in her hand. There was something about Anna that nagged at her, and she stared fiercely at the image until it hit her.

“No way,” she murmured, “it can't be.”

But it was.

She recognized Anna's dress. Certainly the style was classic in its simplicity, in the way of scores of cocktail dresses designed and sold in the past fifty years, and Anna wore it well, as if it had been tailored just for her.

But it was more than that.

Sometimes you just have to accept the magic that comes into your life and leave it be.

So what if she didn't believe in magic?

Toni looked so intently at Anna in the dress that her head pounded. It was the same one, she was sure of it, the exact black dress she'd worn last night when she'd had the strange vision of Hunter. It was Anna's dress and Evie's dress, which made no earthly sense. For that to work, the thing would have to be woven from something stretchy and as malleable as Silly Putty, not delicate silk.