I adjusted the veil with shaky hands and tried to steady my breathing. The bridal suite was quiet except for the wind nudging the windowpanes. Across from me, my mother’s dress—her last gift—hung in a soft spill of ivory, catching the light like it was alive. When the cancer came back, the doctors stopped using words like “hope.” My mom didn’t. “Guess I’ll have to work faster,” she said, and set up her sewing table beside the window. She was a seamstress by trade and an artist at heart; even from a hospital bed she stitched silk and lace with...
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