by Anna Schmidt
She smoothed out the telegram.
“At least write to her, Lily,” Emma urged. “Let her know you’re safe and happy and about to be married. Give her that peace.”
Lily snorted. “You are a better person than I am, Emma,” she said softly.
“At least think about it.” Emma squeezed her hand. “I’m going to speak to Aidan about the wedding date. I’ll see you upstairs.”
Still clutching the telegram, Lily climbed the back stairs. Once she reached her room, she removed her uniform and changed into the pink calico dress that was Cody’s favorite, brushed out her hair, and caught it in a barrette at the nape of her neck. She heard Emma’s unmistakable quick steps coming down the hall and turned as her friend knocked and then entered the room. Emma was smiling broadly.
“Aidan says you should pick whichever Wednesday you want and we’ll make it all happen.”
Lily felt a lightness of spirit flicker and then flare back to life. “I’ll talk to Cody tonight,” she said, taking one last check of herself in the mirror and stuffing her mother’s telegram in her pocket. “Thank you, Emma,” she added, kissing her friend’s forehead before hurrying down the hall. “I won’t be late.”
Emma laughed. They both knew she probably would be.
* * *
Cody read the message Lily’s mother had sent, then laid the telegram on a side table in the hotel reading room and held out his arms to her. She came to him. “So at long last, both the men who wronged you are no longer a threat. It is truly over, Lily. Time to grab onto happiness.”
She tightened her hold on him. “Got it right here,” she said, “and not about to let go.”
Voices from the lobby made them step apart. “Let’s go outside,” Cody said.
They sat in a swing that hung from the wooden rafters on the side of the hotel. The night air was as hot as midday in August back in Chicago. “What should I do about Mother?” she asked.
Cody hesitated. He didn’t know Lily’s family beyond what she had told him about the day she left home and the encounter with her mother at church. “I don’t know, darlin’. She’s your mother, and where I come from, family is everything.”
“You think I should write to her?”
He considered his next words carefully. “I think we need to set a definite date for the wedding and then let your family and mine know they are welcome. And see what happens.”
“You know your parents will come. I’ve already had a letter from your mother welcoming me to the family, and she’s never even met me.”
Cody grinned. “I wrote her all about you.”
“You’re biased.”
“Maybe, but I’m also right. Now when are we gettin’ married, lady?”
She grinned. “Wednesday.”
He felt his heart race. “Day after tomorrow?”
She shrugged. “Any Wednesday.”
“Okay, a Wednesday. Got a month in mind?”
“September?”
“That works. First Wednesday in September.”
“First day of September.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “We’re going to be happy, Cody.”
“Yes, we are.” He waited a beat. “So how about you write your mother and ask her to be here?”
“She won’t come.”
“You don’t know that. Truth is I’d like to thank her.”
Lily sat up. He could feel her staring at him in the dark. “Thank her for what?”
He touched his forefinger to her lips. “For you, Lily—for this remarkable warm and funny and beautiful inside and out woman who has agreed to be my wife.”
She was so quiet and still that under other circumstances he might have thought she’d dozed off. But he knew she was sorting through the myriad thoughts racing through her brain. He had learned she needed to come to decisions in her own time, so he wrapped his arm around her. “Come on,” he said. “It’s been a long day for you, and I’ve got rounds to make.”
They had decided to abstain from making love until their wedding night. “I want it to be special,” Lily had told him, and he had every intention of making sure her wish came true.
* * *
They had a date, and now what Lily needed was the perfect gown. One morning before reporting for her lunchtime shift in the dining room, she walked over to Mr. Tucker’s store to examine his selection of fabrics. In recent years, brides had taken to wearing white for their special day, but somehow white did not seem right for Lily.
“With my hair and fair skin, I’ll look like a ghost,” she’d told Emma.
Now she scanned the bolts of fabric in the mercantile, most of them practical calicos and serge. And then she saw it—a heavy silk in a deep purple that reminded her of wine. She wrestled it free of the stack, praying there would be enough fabric for a proper wedding gown left wound around the tattered cardboard.
“Lily?” Mr. Tucker came to help her take down the fabric. “Best check that over carefully. It’s been up there since well before Mrs. Tucker passed on—got to be ten years or more now.” He carried the fabric to the large wooden counter and began unrolling it, spreading it out so they could examine it for damage.
“It’s perfect,” Lily said softly as she ran her palms over the smooth surface. But was there enough? As if reading her mind, Mr. Tucker began measuring the length. Lily silently counted off the yards.
“Eight and change,” he announced, looking up at her.
“I’ll take it.”
“You don’t want to know the price?” Mr. Tucker started folding the silk back onto the bolt.
“It’s perfect,” she repeated as if that alone should answer his question.
Mr. Tucker smiled. “Got some fancy trimmings over here,” he said once he’d set the silk aside. He pulled down a smaller bolt of heavy lace and placed it on the counter.
Lily fingered the intricate design and mentally calculated her budget. She had her salary for August plus tips, but would it be enough? “How much for the silk plus a yard of the lace?”
Mr. Tucker checked the price tags, then pulled a scrap from the roll of brown wrapping at the end of the counter. He wet the tip of a pencil with his tongue and wrote down figures, then crossed them out and tapped the pencil against the counter before starting to write again. Lily held her breath and kept her hand at her side, fingers crossed.
“Silk,” he muttered and shook his head before taking a second look at the tag on the lace. Finally, he heaved a sigh and pushed the scrap of paper toward her.
8 x $2 yd + 1 x $.75 = $16.75—wedding present = $0.00
Lily read the figures twice before looking up at the older man. “I couldn’t,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “You’d be doing me a favor, taking this off my hands. That silk has sat up there for years now. As for the lace, well, it makes a mighty fine collar, don’t you think?” He draped a length of the trim around his neck and grinned.
Lily hurried around the counter and kissed Mr. Tucker’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you,” she repeated, kissing him again.
Beneath his white beard, his skin flushed, and he chuckled. “Well now, Lily, I reckon you’ve earned your time for having some happiness.” He gave her a one-armed hug, then turned to the task of measuring and cutting the lace. “You got somebody in mind for sewing up this dress for you?”
Lily had to admit she hadn’t given that a thought. She could see the gown in her mind, but actually putting it together?
“Abigail Chambers is right handy with a needle, and she’s got a sewing machine you might find useful,” Mr. Tucker continued. He pulled a length of the wrapping paper and set the fabric in its center. “She’s right embarrassed for getting fooled by Johnson, thinks it’s partly her fault you all had to suffer.” He pushed the package across the counter. “She could use a friend.”
; Lily fingered the string holding her package together. “I doubt…”
“Give it a try, Lily,” Mr. Tucker said.
So clutching the package, Lily left the mercantile and, instead of heading for the hotel, walked two doors up the boardwalk to Abigail’s hat shop.
“Hello?” she called when the proprietress did not immediately appear in answer to the jingle of the bell over her shop door. “Miss Chambers? Abigail?”
Abigail stepped out from behind the curtain, and Lily swallowed a gasp. Lily had never seen her out in public unless she was perfectly groomed, but now dark circles rimmed the undersides of Abigail’s eyes, and her hair was a bird’s nest of frizz and tangles.
“Yes?” she demanded, her eyes defiant.
“Hello, Miss Chambers. Mr. Tucker suggested I might…that is, I purchased this beautiful fabric for my… I need help,” Lily finally blurted.
Abigail’s hard gaze softened slightly. She held out her hands for the package and opened it, smoothing her hands over the silk. “For your wedding?”
Lily nodded, thinking this had been a mistake. She was causing the hatmaker more pain.
Abigail fingered the fabric lovingly, as Lily had. “It’s truly beautiful,” she murmured. She looked up at Lily. “Do you have a design or pattern?”
Lily gave her a weak smile. “In my head?”
Abigail hesitated, then handed her a pad of paper and pencil. “Can you sketch it?”
“I think so.”
Abigail indicated a small table where customers usually sat to try on hats. As Lily drew, Abigail stood behind her, watching. From time to time, Lily glanced up at their reflections in the mirror. She could practically see the wheels turning in Abigail’s head.
“What if we use the lace here and on the cuffs?” Abigail hurried back to the counter and returned with a catalogue. She flipped through it until she found what she wanted. “Like this,” she said, showing Lily the picture.
“Yes,” Lily agreed. “And maybe the upper sleeves could be—”
“—puffed out. It’s the latest thing.” The shopkeeper was definitely getting caught up in the excitement of creating Lily’s gown.
Lily altered the sketch and showed it to Abigail, who smiled and pulled the tape measure from around her neck. “Let’s get started,” she said with a genuine smile as she led Lily to a full-length mirror and began taking and recording measurements.
Back at the hotel, Lily could hardly wait to tell Emma about her morning. “And Abigail has already started making a pattern. She’s insisting on doing the dress in muslin first to be sure everything is perfect and—”
Emma cocked an eyebrow. “Abigail? Abigail Chambers?”
“Oh, Emma, she’s really nice once you get to know her.”
“You do recall she’s been chasing Cody since the day he arrived?”
“The chase is over. Actually, I was thinking she and Frank Tucker would make the perfect pair. I mean, think of it—her business and his go so well together, and they are both lonely. Why not?”
Emma chuckled. “Why not indeed.”
Back in her room, Lily ignored the letter she’d started writing to her mother. She had no idea what to say. What surprised her most was the feeling of grief she had for the life her mother had lived since Lily’s father died. Their romance had been as much a fairy tale as Lily and Cody’s. Had the ensuing years erased all the memories of happy times, or could they be rekindled? Lily sat near the window that overlooked the hotel’s rear yard and started fresh.
Dear Mama,
I wanted to let you know I received your wire and share some news. I am to be married next month, to a man who reminds me so much of Papa, and so I have thought often of you and those happy days when our family shared so many good times. He is the sheriff here in Juniper, but soon he will take up a new position as territorial representative for New Mexico. We will live in Santa Fe and Washington, and it promises to be the life of adventure I always longed for. Cody Daniels is a good man, kind and caring. His family will be here for the wedding, and I thought perhaps you might consider coming as well.
She paused, surprised at having written those last words. Tears welled as she stared at the page, realizing that her hand had written what her heart had not allowed herself to acknowledge. She wanted her mother with her on this important day of her life.
Quickly, she added the practical details for traveling from Chicago to Juniper and the dates and signed off with “Your daughter, Lily” before folding and sealing the envelope. She hurried downstairs to the front desk, placing the letter with other outgoing mail before she could change her mind.
When she looked up, Cody was standing in the hotel entrance, backlit by a setting sun. Her breath caught. She had to be the most blessed woman in the world.
* * *
The minute Cody saw Lily tuck the envelope in with other mail on the front desk of the hotel, he knew whose address would be on that letter. The question was, what had she said?
“You wrote your mother?” he asked when she joined him and they headed outside to the swing where they spent every evening now.
“I did. I invited her to come for the wedding.”
“I’m glad.”
“She might not come,” Lily said, her voice unsteady with the realization.
“Or she might,” he replied. “Either way, you’ve made the attempt at reconciliation.”
“Seems to be the order of the day for me.” She told him about her time with Abigail and how Frank Tucker had insisted on making a present of the fabric. Finally, she leaned back and let out a sigh. “It’s been a wonderful day,” she said.
He wrapped his arm around her and kicked the swing into motion. “I have some news of my own,” he said. “I got word today that with no other candidates in the running and the current representative’s health failing, the governor has appointed me to the position sooner than we expected. I gave Mayor Tucker my resignation this afternoon.”
“That’s wonderful, Cody.”
“So how do you feel about a wedding trip to the nation’s capital?”
“Washington?”
He chuckled. “Unless they moved it and didn’t tell anyone.”
Lily squealed with delight. Then she sat up. “I haven’t a thing suitable for wearing in Washington,” she fumed. “I have to…”
“They have shops there,” Cody assured her. “Sounds like this dress you and Abigail are cooking up for the wedding might be perfect for the trip itself, and once there, we’ll go shopping. I reckon my wardrobe will need a bit of sprucing up as well.”
“But some things you’ll keep,” Lily said, her tone worried. “Your hat and boots, and definitely no stiff collars and ties for you,” she added. “I won’t have it. Those stuffed shirts in the capital need to see that there’s a new time coming and we are the face of it.”
Cody laughed. He felt a little sorry for the men and women of Washington. They had no idea that a sudden storm in the form of Lily was coming their way. She would undoubtedly change things in ways they hadn’t even begun to imagine.
Later, after Lily had gone in for the night and he’d made his rounds, Cody had an idea. He stopped by the hotel. The mail was still on the front desk, ready to go out with the morning train. He found Lily’s letter to her mother, saw she had used her father’s surname in the address rather than that of her stepfather, and copied the information down. Then he went back to his office.
Dear Mrs. Travis,
My name is Cody Daniels, and as Lily tells you in her letter, we are to be married. Lily has often spoken of you and her father and the happy childhood she and her brothers shared before Mr. Travis passed. I wanted you to know that in spite of some difficult times that followed, Lily is a woman much beloved by all who know her. She is high-spirited, to be sure, but her devotion to those she loves is rock solid. It is
my great honor that she has agreed to become my wife and join her path to mine. I love her with all my heart, and my promise to you is that I will make sure she is safe and happy every day of our lives together. I know that your presence would add a special blessing to our wedding day. Please come.
He had no idea how to sign off, so he just added his name. The following morning, on his way to have breakfast at the counter, he added his letter to the stack of mail at the front desk.
* * *
As Lily came downstairs for work the day before her wedding, George motioned her into the kitchen. “We need to decide on your cakes, Lily.”
“Cakes? As in more than one?”
“Tradition requires three. One each for the bride and groom, and a third for the guests.”
“Grace had one cake,” she reminded him.
“Grace’s situation was different. Now, I have in mind a fruitcake with white frosting for Cody. For you, something very special—a lemon cheesecake with charms.”
“Charms?”
“Small good-luck tokens for the wedding party. I place them on top of the cake, each attached to a ribbon. Then members of the wedding party pull the ribbons to collect their charm.”
“Sounds like a mess,” Lily noted, but she could not deny the idea was appealing. “What’s your idea for cake number three?”
“Traditional. The pieces are boxed for guests to take home and enjoy, so the cake has to be sturdy—layers of white cake separated perhaps by some fruit jam?”
Lily touched George’s sleeve. “I leave it all in your very capable hands, as I doubt I’ll recall a single detail of the day. I’ll be far too excited.”
She hurried on to the dining room. She had a gown and now the proper wedding cake—cakes. She had sent letters to her brothers and received telegrams saying they would not be able to attend but wished her every happiness, and they urged Cody and her to visit while on their wedding trip.
And she had written her mother. Whether or not there would be a response from her remained to be seen, but Lily refused to allow anything or anyone to dampen her excitement as her wedding day approached.