Mother of the Bride

The knocking started again. It was the groom, and he wanted to see her. I checked the lock on the bedroom door and ignored him, touching the perfectly molded shape of my hairdo. Smoothing down the powder-blue front of my new dress, I hoped my makeup covered the scar on my chin. I told myself again, for the twentieth time that night, that I didn't need a nip from my flask to calm me.

The groom was shouting through the door now. Didn't he know a lady needs her time to prepare for a night like tonight? Impatient little bastard - impatient little Yankee. He wasn't going to ruin my perfect night.

My nails were a wreck. I'd started biting them the second we agreed to let that light-in-the-loafers fellow design and decorate Angel's cake. Someone in the Yankee's family had suggested him. Who would ever agree to a champagne waterfall spilling off a three-tier cake? For the past few days all I've had to eat was my pride, with a dessert of fingernails and a bourbon chaser.

I was about to go out of my head from that knocking.

I picked up my corsage, a white rose with baby's breath, the one thing the senile old biddy at the florist got right. I didn't even want to think of the mangled mess Angel's bouquet turned out to be, ull of dying carnations and limp Gerber daisies. Carnations! It made me want to scream.

I stepped into my shoes and looked at myself, trying not to see the tiny notch in my chin from that day in May. I held my breath and heard the Yankee talking hysterically on the phone.

When I glanced around the room, I noticed them. A dozen red roses on bureau. I tried to remember if I'd seen them there before. To refresh my spotty memory, I read the bent and tattered card: "Love forever, from now to the end of time." I felt tears sting my eyes.

"Stop," I commanded, looking at the old, weak-willed woman in the mirror with tears dripping down her cheeks. My mascara was ruined, but that could be easily fixed. Everything could still be fixed. We'll still be able to celebrate.

There. I was about ready. It was time to let the Yankee in. I crossed the room and unlocked the bedroom door.

"I was about to call the police, you crazy bitch," he said, barging in. "Where is she?"

He stormed around the room, looking in the guest bathroom and under the bed, all the while demanding to know where Angel was. Didn't he realize it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding? And not just on the day of. We didn't want to have bad luck on our perfect day, now, did we? A giggle escaped my lips. At least the knocking had stopped.

He quit pacing suddenly and gave me a funny look. He glanced at the closet, then back to me again. Sniffing the air, he turned his back on me, moving toward the closet door.

I touched the front of my dress, down low as the little Yankee took another step closer to the closet. My perfect day.

Angel stood on a chair in front of the mirror, trying not to fall out of her wedding dress. All those plates of fries had caught up to her, and she was no longer a size six.

We had exactly three weeks and one day before the wedding. Twenty-two days. Maybe if I didn't sleep, we'd be able to get everything done before then. I definitely started to feel much clearer after I stopped taking my menopause medicine last month.

"Mama," Angel began, squirming under my gaze. "Eric and I have been talking. This hasn't been an easy decision, but…"

I was barely listening, but I snapped to attention when I heard the words "moving away."

"What did you say?" I could barely spit the words out. "About Cincinnati. Ohio."

"Okay," Angelina said at last, trying to step down from the chair. "Okay. Eric didn't get his transfer. He's not going to be able to move here. We may have to postpone."

"Oh no," I said. The chair wobbled as she tried to move away from me. "No way are you backing out, not after all this. You will not ruin my day."

"Mama," Angelina said. "Let me down. I don't want to tear my dress."

"You're worried about your dress?" I screamed, grabbing her soft hips.

"Mama!" Angelina screamed back, jerking away from me, her chair tipping over.

The chair hit the hardwood floor, and the front of the dress split open in front of my eyes. Angel hit the floor hard. Then I was on top of her, her garter somehow balled up in my hand. I wanted her to be quiet, needed her to stop fighting me. She'd spent the past year fighting me, ever since she'd gotten that ring with its gaudy one-carat diamond. Still she fought me. Her left fist hit me in the chin, snapping my head back. I felt a tiny snap, but I didn't let o. Finally the struggling ended.

Something was wedged into my chin. It was jagged and sharp, like a knife. The tip of a perfect diamond poked out of the middle of my chin. I knew that it was exactly one carat in size.

"You can open it if you want," I said at five minutes past six. My hands pulled on the front of my dress, lifting it slightly. "But you know it's bad luck."

"What are you talking about?" the Yankee whispered in his hoarse voice. He paused in front of the closet door, his hand on the knob.

"My party, my wedding," I said. I pulled up my dress, reaching between my legs. Eric the Yankee turned at the sound of my dress rustling.

"Mrs. Sanders, what are you doing? This isn't the time or the place-"

"Mind your business," I ordered, nodding at the closet door. Turning, he jerked the door open, unleashing the full force of the stink that had been clogging my nose all month.

"Oh God," he whispered, falling to his knees in front of the figure in the closet. vI pulled out the knife - held in place by Angelina's battered garter - from underneath my slip. On its way out the knife sliced through the wrinkled, abused garter. The garter fell to the floor like a dead bird.

I couldn't help but take one last look at her. My little Angel. She stood wedged into the closet, still in her perfect, torn, five-thousand-and-fifty-dollar wedding dress. Her skin was brown as an old bruise, beginning to fall from her bones. Her face was locked in a permanent grimace.

She's lost some weight, a voice whispered inside my head, and I laughed above the wailing coming from the Yankee on the floor. Her ring finger sported a plain gold band, the diamond gone. My little Angel.

"This is it," I whispered, raising the knife. No one else needed to know. "My perfect day."

The little Yankee never knew what hit him.

End

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