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E L L A
Ted and Doreen had never claimed there was anything special about this
wedding anniversary. Thirty-six wasn’t a nice round number people usually
celebrated. It didn’t roll off the tongue, and my mother-in-law swore up and
down there was no personal significance to the numbers. But the party was
important to them. So important, Doreen wanted to wear her butterfly-wing
dress.
But her body had changed, and it didn’t look right anymore.
I’d offered to alter it. I didn’t know if I could figure out how the thing
even worked without taking it apart completely, but Doreen deserved every
happiness, so I’d agreed to try.
I waited for her in my studio. My altered silver dress hung on the
mannequin. I’d made some adjustments in the month since I’d worn it to
our disastrous dinner. It had a leather corset belt and uneven hemline. I kept
playing with it. Some nights, my mind was so alive with ideas, I couldn’t
sleep.
I’d recreated it in new fabrics, trying to emulate the pattern, eating at the
cutting table Logan had surprised me with, staying on Highland later than I
should. The shelves were soon stacked with boxes of false starts and bad
ideas.
Logan had asked me if there was an end goal for all this time I was
spending in the studio. He knew I didn’t want to mass-produce clothing any
more than I wanted to do custom couture. I told him I was amusing myself
and he’d better not get in the way of it with dumb questions.
He laughed and kissed me, then laughed again when I jabbed him in the
ribs. Then he pushed my wrists over my head and pinned them against the