The Wedding Veil
Kristy Woodson Harvey
To my sister-in-law Dorothy Coleman, my cousin Sidney Patton, and all the women who have worn the wedding veil.
Each of you inspired this story of what it means to be a part of something that has come before—and will remain long after.
PROLOGUE Magic
June 5, 1879
Six-year-old Edith Dresser’s skates moved heavily, as if she were rolling through sand, across the patterned wool rug in her mother Susan’s bedroom. She lived for moments like this, when she had her vivacious, beautiful mother all to herself while her three sisters continued their skating downstairs in the dining room. Usually, her mother’s lady’s maid would have helped Susan get ready for the party she was attending this evening, but she wasn’t feeling well. So instead, Edith stood—her skates making her taller—admiring the rows of frocks for every occasion in her mother’s closet.
“Do you think the pink for tonight, darling?” Susan asked. Edith tried to focus on her mother, but her child’s eyes wandered to the back corner of the narrow closet. “I love pink, Mama,” Edith said as she clomped ungracefully to a garment she knew well. With a tentative finger, she traced the lace on the edge of her favorite piece, the one she and her sisters loved to try on most: her mother’s wedding veil.
Susan turned and smiled, watching her daughter study one of her most prized possessions. In a burst of energy, she moved behind Edith, swept the long veil off its hanger, and motioned for Edith to follow her. In the light and opulence of her bedroom, Susan placed the cherished Juliet cap on her small daughter’s head, gently touching the rows of pearls at the bottom. She smiled.
“Just look at you, my girl,” Susan said as she arranged the lace-edged tulle around her daughter’s shoulders, the contrast great against her gray wool dress. Edith stood as still as one of the statues in the yard, holding her breath so she couldn’t possibly damage the veil.
Staring into the mirror, Edith felt transformed. It was still her reflection looking back at her, in her usual outfit with her favorite roller skates. But, somehow, she was completely different.
Susan bent down until her eyes locked with her daughter’s in the mirror. “One day,” she said, “when you are quite grown up and find a man you love very much, you will wear this veil just like I did when I married Daddy.”
Edith watched her own eyes go wide, imagining. Then she scrunched her nose. “But I want to stay with you, Mama.” Edith knew that, in other houses like hers, little girls were supposed to be seen and not heard. They weren’t allowed to roller skate inside and certainly weren’t permitted to play dress-up in their mother’s elegant clothes. Why would Edith ever want to leave a mother who let her keep a dozen pet turtles in the yard?
Susan laughed, moving in front of her daughter to adjust the veil again. She wrapped her in a hug and said, “No, Edi. You are going to find a wonderful man and be the most beautiful bride. Daddy will be there to walk you down the aisle, your sisters will stand beside you as your bridesmaids, and I will sniffle into my handkerchief and wipe my eyes because I will be so proud and happy.”
Edith was confused. “If you’re happy, why would you cry?”
“Because that’s what mothers do at their daughters’ weddings.”
Edith studied her mother, trying to think if she had ever seen her cry from happiness. She couldn’t remember a time, but, then again, Mama had a whole life that didn’t involve Edith, many hours that she would never see. And she figured that Mama liked living with Daddy, along with Edith and her sisters Susan, Pauline, and Natalie. So perhaps Edith would come to like having a family of her own as well. But she had conditions. Thinking of her favorite storybook, Cinderella, she said, “If I’m going to get married, I think I’d like to be a princess.”
Susan laughed delightedly. “Yes, yes. You, most certainly, will be a princess. You will live in a castle with many acres to roam to stretch your legs and plenty of fresh air to fill your lungs. You will have your own lady’s maid and a nursery full of lovely children. You will find a husband who will love you more than the stars, who will give you the earth and everything on it.”
This gave Edith a wonderful idea. “Can I marry Daddy, Mama?”
Susan smiled indulgently. “Well, I’m married to Daddy. But you will find a man just like Daddy, who is kind and handsome and loves you very much. And he will take care of you like Daddy takes care of me.”
Edith nodded. Becoming a bride suddenly seemed very, very important. She looked back at herself in the mirror, at how beautiful the veil was and, when she was wearing it, how beautiful she became. “Is this a magic wedding veil, Mama?” Edith asked.
Susan nodded enthusiastically. “Why yes, darling,” she whispered. “You have discovered the secret. Once you wear it on your wedding day, you will be happy forever.”
Edith, looking at herself one last time, wondered if she should share this life-changing news with her sisters. But no. That would ruin it somehow. She had a secret with her beloved mother, one to call her very own: The wedding veil was magic. And once she wore it, the fairy-tale life her mother had promised would be hers.
JULIA Follow the Rules
Present Day
My mother had been telling me for months that an April wedding in Asheville was risky. Snow isn’t out of the question, Julia, she’d reminded me over and over again.
But as I stood awestruck at the brick pathway that led to the conservatory at Biltmore Estate, admiring a field of tens of thousands of orange and yellow tulips, their faces turned toward the sun, it felt like snow was definitely out of the question. A long table sprawled in front of the brick and glass space, with a massive garland of roses, hydrangeas, and, of course, tulips running its entire length.
“It’s perfect,” Sarah, my best friend and maid of honor, whispered in this holy quiet. I nodded, not wanting to break the silence, not wanting to disrupt the overwhelming peace.
Sarah linked her arm through mine. “Are you ready?”
I nodded automatically, but what did that even mean? Could anyone ever be ready? My wedding wasn’t until tomorrow, but this bridesmaids’ luncheon was the start of the wedding weekend. While my fiancé Hayes and his friends shot skeet and drank bourbon and did whatever else a groom and his groomsmen did before a wedding, I would be here sipping champagne and eating tea sandwiches with my mother, my bridesmaids, my aunt, and the women in Hayes’s family—including his mother. Their difficult relationship made my feelings about this event complicated. What made them simpler was the woman responsible for the splendor of this day: my grandmother Babs.
Maybe a person couldn’t be responsible for the day—after all, no one could control the weather. But Babs was the kind of woman who seemed like she could. She—along with my aunt Alice, who was my wedding planner—hadn’t just picked the brown Chiavari chairs that went around the table and had umpteen meetings with the florist and agonized over every detail of the menu for this luncheon. She had actually, somehow, made this day a perfect seventy-two degrees filled with beaming sunshine and fields of impeccable tulips because it was my day. Even if she didn’t quite approve of the groom.