Page 163 of Save the Date
Baby Betsy stirred in her bassinette, and Meghan scooped her up and handed her to her grandmother. “Four.”
“That’s right,” Frannie murmured.
The door opened again and Ellie Lewis poked her head around the doorway. “Everybody dressed and ready? The photographer wants you all out in the foyer for a few pictures before the guests start stampeding.”
Cara took a deep breath. “All ready.”
“Oh, just one more thing,” Frannie said. She picked her gold pocketbook off the bed, opened it, and handed Cara a frilly, beribboned garter. “Here’s your something blue. It’s probably not really your style, but my sister Betty made it especially for you.…”
“I love it,” Cara assured her. She hiked up her dress and slid the garter above her knee.
“Good. Now, can we please get moving?” Ellie said, dabbing at her damp face with her hankie. The other women filed out of the bedroom, with Cara bringing up the rear.
“Wait,” Ellie said. “Where’s your bouquet? We can’t take your picture without your bouquet.”
“Bert was bringing it,” Cara said. “He insisted on making it himself, as a surprise for me. Isn’t he here yet? I swear, if he’s late today, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?”
Bert stood in the hallway at the end of the guest wing. He wore a pair of dark green linen pleat-front trousers with dark red suspenders, a billowy cream-colored dress shirt, a vintage brown tweed three-button vest, and a brown felt fedora.
“You’ll fire me? You can’t fire me, now, I’m your business partner, remember?”
“Oh, never mind,” Cara said, remembering her vow to stay calm. “Did you bring my flowers?”
Bert had been standing with one hand hidden behind his back.
“Ta-da!” he said, bowing deeply.
Cara had been holding her breath. But she exhaled slowly now, holding the bouquet in both hands, turning it slowly to take it all in.
“Oh, Bert,” she breathed. “It’s exquisite.”
“Better than Martha Stewart March 2009?”
“Better than anything, ever,” Cara said.
And this was no exaggeration. The bouquet was an explosion of creamy coral roses, light and deep pink dahlias, and hypericum berries. Tiny sprigs of white feverfew and celosia plumes were interspersed with the larger flowers. The flower stems were tightly wrapped with coral pink satin ribbon and fastened with a sparkly pink vintage starburst rhinestone brooch.
Cara inhaled sharply. “My mother’s pin! This is just like her favorite pin. How did you…”
“You didn’t think I’d skip our trademark Bloom touch now, did you?”
“But… where did it come from? My mother used to wear this when my parents had a fancy-dress party to go to. I used to call it her fairy-princess pin. I haven’t seen it in years.…”
Cara hadn’t seen any of her mother’s belongings since before her funeral. She’d come home from college the day before to find that all her mother’s possessions, her clothes, books, paintings, everything, had been removed from the house, overnight.
Valerie, her mother’s best friend, confided in Cara that she’d done the packing at the Colonel’s request. “It’s too painful for him,” Valerie said. “Seeing her clothes in the closet, her hairbrush on the dressing table, it was just too much. He thought it would be easier for you this way too.”
“Easier,” Cara had mumbled, her mind numb with the pain and confusion of her mother’s sudden death. “Yeah, probably so.”
But in the months and years that followed Barbara Kryzik’s funeral, Cara would silently pine for anything that would be a tangible reminder of her mother.
“The pin was Jack’s idea,” Bert admitted. “He thought you might like to have something of your mom’s. You know, for something old.”
“I still don’t understand how he found it,” Cara continued, shaking her head.
“He called me and asked me if I’d mind bringing it down here.”
