Dust Eva Everson (story reading txt) 📖

I shook my head and peered through the veil at the mirror, not fully seeing the picture it reflected. A beautiful bride was supposed to look back at me. Instead an anxious inner voice clouded the view. “He said everything was fine and that I was being a nervous bride,” I answered her.

Julie smiled at me, one side of her mouth rising higher than the other. “And are you?”

I coughed a tiny giggle, which caused the veil to poof. “I’m scared out of my mind.”

Julie’s brow rose. “About tonight?”

Heat rose in me. “A little … but …” No. Not really. Whatever was in store for me as a young bride, I knew enough about my groom to sense that he’d take his time … allow me to take mine.

She grinned. “Don’t be. I can’t say the first time is the best time, but I promise you it will get better.” She threw up her hands then and air-quoted, “Did Mom have the talk with you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you kidding me? You’re talking about our mother, right? Whatever I learned, I learned from Elaine.”

“I beg your pardon,” Elaine laughed, knowing full well she’d managed to study up and share more on the subject than Masters and Johnson ever dreamed of.

“Yeah, she didn’t tell me anything either. Then again, I ran off and got married so I guess she decided that—by the time we got back from our honeymoon, such as it was—I had it all figured out.”

“Did you?” Elaine asked, her grin showing a side to her I knew all too well.

Julie shook her head. “No, but I’m working hard to. Maybe that’s what we do,” she said, her expression oddly contemplative. “Maybe we spend our whole lives just trying to figure it out.” She stood straight, all notions gone. “All right, little sister. The mothers have been seated. The grandmothers and grandfathers are getting older by the second and they’re probably restless for cake. Your future sister-in-law is out in the vestibule waiting and our father is pulling at his collar as if it’s a noose. It looks like we’ve done all the damage here we can do.” She threw her arms wide. “What’s say we go get you married?”

“And when you return from your honeymoon,” Elaine threw in, “you can tell us if you figured it out or not.”

I shook my head with a sigh. “Elaine,” I said. “You simply will not do.”

“Whatever you do,” Julie said as she opened the door to lead the way, “don’t bring this other stuff up again with Westley tonight. It’s not the time. Just … wait.”

“Okay.”

Then she added, “Now … go.”

The afternoon went by in a blur of tears and stomach knots. Of vows and directions and camera bulb flashes. Of punch and cake and grinning so much my jaws ached. Of holding on to Daddy’s arm as he guided me toward Westley and then my new husband’s arm whenever I needed support to get through the next moment. Later, when Mama helped me into a wrap-around, long-sleeved dress, she fretted long enough to make her final point to me. At least for the day. “Westley is a good man,” she told me as we stood almost exactly where Elaine and Julie and I had stood mere hours before.

“I know, Mama.”

She grabbed a shoe box from the floor. Opened it. “Here, put these on.”

I did, slipping them over feet kept in line by nude-colored pantyhose while holding onto the side of a wingback chair for support.

“And he comes from a good family.”

“I know.”

“He’s going places.”

I straightened, then pressed my hands over the front of my skirt. “I need my bouquet.”

“Not like your sister’s husband.”

“Dean.”

She frowned at me. “I know his name.”

“Then you should say it from time to time.”

“Don’t get smart. Just because you’re a married woman now …”

“Mama …”

“Whatever he wants, Allison Grace.”

My breath caught. “Is this the talk? Here? Now? Because if it is—”

Mama stood straight. Raised a thick and perfectly arched brow. “Impertinence. I won’t have it.”

I attempted to laugh. “I’m teasing you—”

Her index finger found my nose. “I won’t get a chance to say this again, so listen up. I’m telling you that Westley Houser is the kind of man who needs to run his own household. Whatever he wants, Allison, you just follow his lead. Don’t mess this up. Don’t shame me and your daddy. We’ve done good by you and—”

I reached for her then, drawing her close, feeling the frailness of a woman who spent too much time cooking and not enough time eating. “Mama,” I whispered. “I love you so much and I love him so much and I promise you—I promise you—I won’t do anything to embarrass you or Daddy.”

She held on to me with a passion I’d never known from her—at least not that I could remember. She’d been a good mother. A worrisome mother. A mother who made sure we minded our p’s and q’s, Julie and me. And she’d always been there for Daddy, now that I thought about it, whenever he strolled into the house. And once he stepped through the door …

“Make him the king of his castle,” she whispered. “That’s what my mother told me, and I’ve never regretted it.” She broke the embrace, her eyes now washed in tears, finding mine. “No more flying by the seat of your pants, Allison. This is your purpose in life now. He is your purpose.”

I’d never heard anything remotely like this from Mama’s mouth. Had no idea how deeply she felt about the relationship between a man and his wife. Between a mother and her children and the way they all hung in the balance, one with the other. Even in my naiveté, the notion that her instruction somehow related to her own mother and the loss of her father came to me by instinct. Mother to daughter. Daughter to mother. “Mama …”

She swallowed hard, pushing a repression down that I had no understanding