CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | CASSIDY
“Hold still,” Vanessa whispered. “I’m almost done…”
I held my breath and sat perfectly frozen as Vanessa dabbed my cheeks with a beauty blender sponge. Then she sat back and inspected my face.
“Can I move?” I muttered through my teeth, trying my best not to disturb the fresh coat of sticky gloss that Vanessa had painstakingly painted over my lips.
“Not yet,” Vanessa said sternly as she reached for a tube of mascara. She pumped the wand into the tube several times, then she raised the wand towards my lashes.
“Blink,” she instructed me, positioning the wand directly beneath my lash line.
“I hope this is waterproof mascara,” I said, blinking as she passed the wand through my lashes.
“Umm…” Vanessa reached for the tube and quickly scanned the bottle. “Yes! It’s waterproof. You can cry your eyes out!”
“Whew,” I let out a relieved sigh.
“But you’re only allowed to cry happy tears,” Vanessa added. She passed the wand to my other eye.
“Those are the only kind I’ve got today,” I grinned.
Vanessa plunged the mascara wand back into the tube, then she gave my face a final once-over.
“Holy shit,” she said under her breath as she inspected me.
“What?” I gulped. “Is something wrong?!”
“No, no,” Vanessa shook her head quickly. “You’re just… perfect. You look so beautiful, Cass.”
“Can I look?” I asked.
Vanessa nodded, and I turned around slowly in my seat. There was a large full-length mirror propped against the wall behind me, and when I saw my reflection, I barely recognized myself.
It was still me… but it was a version of myself I wasn’t used to seeing.
I had given complete creative freedom to Vanessa, and she had turned me into a princess.
My long black hair was woven into an intricate series of braids and twists that all joined together in a bun at the nape of my neck. Loose ringlets framed my face.
My makeup was dewy and natural: soft smoky eyes, pale red gloss that made my lips look gently bitten, and a dusting of rosy pink blush that happened to match the exact shade that my cheeks turned whenever I thought about Brady.
I stood up slowly from my chair in front of the mirror and I undid the sash of my pink silk robe. I took a deep breath, then I let the robe slip off my shoulders, revealing my white wedding dress underneath.
“If you weren’t my best friend, I would totally hate you for being so perfect,” Vanessa confessed, standing by my side and admiring my reflection in the mirror.
I turned to face Vanessa.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I told her. “For everything. I don’t know if I would have made it here today, if it wasn’t for you…”
“That’s what friends are for,” she shrugged.
“Well, I owe you one.”
“I’ll remember that when I get married,” Vanessa winked and nudged my shoulder playfully.
Knock, knock.
Vanessa and I both turned towards the bedroom door, and my heart started racing in my chest.
“It’s just me, honey!” Mom called, somehow sensing my stress through the bedroom door. “Can I come in?”
“Yes!”
The door opened, but the woman who stepped into the room looked unrecognizable.
She was wearing a form-fitting pale green dress that flattered all of the soft curves that had started filling out, since she got her appetite back. Her skin was radiant, and her eye sparkled with a vibrancy and life that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
What surprised me the most was her hair. Mom had always felt self-conscious about losing her hair during treatment. Her soft silk head scarves had become a security blanket, and she continued to wear them even after completing chemo.
I didn’t even notice the scarves anymore; they were just a part of her, the same as her eyes or nose.
But she wasn’t wearing a scarf today. She didn’t need it anymore; her hair had grown back! Luscious, silky black coils of hair adorned her head, styled into a curly, playful pixie cut.
“Who is this bombshell?!” Vanessa gushed, checking my mom out from head to toe.
“What do you think?” Mom asked, blushing modestly. She absently slipped her fingers into the soft curls on her head.
“Mom, you look… ” I choked up, and my eyes misted over with tears. “Stunning.”
Mom’s eyes were filling with tears, too. She stared at the ceiling and fanned her eyes with her hands, trying to stop the tears before they streamed down her face.
Vanessa’s eyes flashed between my mom and me, and then she smiled knowingly.
“My work here is done,” she said, quickly packing up her makeup supplies and tossing them into the large canvas bag that she had brought. “I’ll give you two some privacy!”
She slipped out of the room, leaving Mom and I alone.
“Look at you,” Mom said, sniffling as looked me up and down. “My beautiful daughter is getting married.”
Mom sat down on the edge of my bed, then she reached out and took both of my hands in hers.
“I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long,” she said softly.
“I know,” I choked. I blinked my eyes and stared up, but there was no stopping the tears that were pouring from my ducts and flooding my eyes.
“I brought you something,” Mom said.
She let go of my hands, and then she raised her left arm. A silver charm bracelet slipped down her thin wrist, and the delicate charms tinkled together softly.
“Your charm bracelet.” I recognized it right away. My Mom had worn that bracelet for as long as I could remember.
As a young girl, I had been fascinated by the assortment of charms. Every night when my mom tucked me into bed, I would beg her to tell me the story behind one of the charms. Sometimes she obliged; that’s how I had learned the story of the silver dog, the jagged rectangle shaped like the state of Connecticut, the tiny ballerina, the little snow globe…
One night, I had wrapped my little fingers around the charm that was shaped like a diamond ring. “What about this one?” I had asked.
Mom’s eyes had twinkled fondly. She explained that she and my father hadn’t had a lot of money when they got married. My father couldn’t afford to buy a fancy ring, so he had bought her that bracelet instead. There was only one charm on the bracelet when he presented it to her: the little silver ring. My father told her that the charm was a promise; someday, he would buy her the ring that she deserved.
But Mom had loved the bracelet so much that she decided she didn’t want a fancy ring, after all. Instead, she told my father to fill the bracelet with charms. Every charm represented a piece of the life that they had built together, and in my mother’s eyes, that made it more meaningful and precious than a ring.
After chemo, Mom became so frail and tiny that the bracelet would slip straight off her wrist. She stopped wearing it, and she tucked it away somewhere that it would be safe.
“You used to love this bracelet,” Mom smiled, twisting her wrist so the charms chimed together.
“I did,” I nodded. “I loved that it was full of stories; like a book of fairy tales.”
“I always planned on giving you this bracelet on your wedding day,” Mom said softly. “You could wear it as your ‘something borrowed.’”
She sighed and let her wrist fall into her lap. The charms went silent.
“When the cancer got bad, I started to lose hope…” Mom swallowed heavily, keeping her eyes pinned on a spot on the floor. “I was worried that I might not get the chance to give you the bracelet…”
A tear streamed down my cheek, then another one.
“I made your father promise that no matter what happened to me, he would make sure you got this bracelet on your wedding day. Even if I wasn’t around to see you get married, I wanted you to know that you still had a part of me with you…”
A sob broke free from my lungs, and tears poured out of my eyes. Waterproof or not, my mascara was a lost cause… but I didn’t care. I reached forward and fell into my mother’s arms, and she hugged me with all of her strength.
Mom pulled away first. She reached for my arm and she carefully wrapped the charm bracelet around my wrist, clipping the clasp shut.
Then she turned the bracelet around and located a charm that I didn’t recognize; a tiny silver fire hydrant.
“I added this one for you and Brady,” she said softly, pinching the charm between her fingers. “Another story for the collection.”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer; words were weighing heavily on the tip of my tongue, and I knew that I had to tell my mom the truth.
“Mom,” I whispered. “I need to tell you something. I need to tell you truth about Brady and I,” I said slowly. “We--”
“Oh honey,” Mom smiled, blinking through the tears that lined her own eyes. “You don’t need to tell me anything. I already know.”
“You… you do?” I stammered.
She nodded, and she held my hands again.
“But… how?”
“I’m your mother,” she said, still smiling. “And I’ve known Brady Hudson since he was in diapers. You’re both terrible liars.”
“But… why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought about it,” Mom admitted. “But when I saw the way you looked at him, and when I saw the way he looked at you… I decided that it’d be best to let you two figure things out for yourselves.”
I shook my head in shock, trying to process what my mom had just told me.
“All along, you just wanted me to be happy,” I said finally.
“That’s all I wanted,” Mom nodded.
I wiped the tears from my eyes with the tips of my fingers, and I smiled from ear to ear.
Neither of us needed to say a word; we both knew that Mom had gotten her wish. And so had I.