Chapter 1 - The Sound of Scissors
The first thing I heard was the snap of scissors. The second was my husband shouting, “Mom, what have you done?”
A weight vanished from the back of my head. I turned in the middle of our wedding dance, and Martha Hale stood beneath the restaurant's gold chandeliers holding my braid like a trophy. White roses and little blue ribbons dangled from its end. Seven years of growing it, gone. My hair barely touched my neck.
The band stumbled to a stop. A waiter froze. Two hundred guests stared.
“Martha,” I managed, “give that back.”
She raised the braid higher. “Oh, sweetheart. Don't make a scene. It's a Hale family tradition.”
“Since when?” Nick said. He was still holding my hand. His palm had gone cold.
“Since always. A wife leaves her old life behind.” Martha smiled for the phones already lifting around the dance floor. “It's only hair. It'll grow.”
My mother had braided it the last morning she could lift both arms. During her final months, she used to say, Keep something beautiful for yourself, Anna. When she died, I'd kept growing it. Today I'd woven her blue ribbons into it so she could be with me when I married Nick.
“You knew why it mattered,” I whispered.
Martha leaned close. “Maybe now you'll stop acting like a little girl.”
Nick took a careful step between us. “Put the scissors down.”
“Oh, don't start choosing sides,” she said. “You married her an hour ago. I've been your mother for thirty years.”
My new husband looked at the braid, then at me. For once he didn't say, She didn't mean it. For once he didn't ask me to forgive her.
“Anna, stay with Rosa,” he said, nodding toward my maid of honor. “I'll be right back.”
He walked out through the service doors. Martha laughed at his retreating back.
“See? Even my son knows you're overreacting.”
Ten minutes later Nick returned, took the microphone, and said, “There's someone I should have brought into this room a long time ago.”
May you like
He stepped aside. The man in the doorway held a walking cane and had my husband's eyes.
Martha screamed, “No. You are not supposed to be here!”
