After a week, Graham Harrison still hadn’t gotten everything unpacked in the new house in Celeste. He didn’t regret moving there, not after that last bout of bullying his girls had experienced at their bigger school. From what Alice, his sister, said about the smaller Celeste schools, they didn’t tolerate such things, and as the high school English teacher, she’d be on the watch. He poured a cup of coffee and carried it to the kitchen table. The girls were up that morning and rattling around in their bedrooms, so he only had a few more minutes of peace.
Dixie breezed into the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, and grabbed a box of cereal. “Mornin’, Dad.”
“Mornin’, sweetheart.” Graham wondered what kind of life his girls would have if their mother had stuck around. But that was water under the bridge, and even though she was living in Dallas now and had said she wanted to be a part of their lives, it was about fourteen years too late.
Tabby stopped long enough to give him a kiss on the forehead. “Did you talk to that place about our dresses for Mother’s friend’s wedding yet?”
“It’s on my to-do list today. Did y’all decide what color or style?”
“Lizzy said bubblegum pink and whatever style we like. I hate that color,” Dixie said with a groan. “I’m going to look like a big mound of cotton candy.”
“The senior bridesmaids are wearing burgundy, so Lizzy thought we’d be cute in pink. She hasn’t seen us since we were babies and only asked us because Mama put a guilt trip on her,” Tabby said. “I still don’t want to go.”
“Well, Lizzy better get ready for a big surprise when we show up as junior bridesmaids in our bubblegum-pink dresses.” Dixie poured a bowl of cereal and added milk. “We’re not little girls anymore.”
Tabby giggled. “You got that right about us not bein’ little girls anymore.”
Graham could put his amen on that, but he kept his mouth shut. He was six foot five, and his twin daughters had taken after him instead of their petite blonde mother. Last time he’d measured the girls, they were both five feet, ten inches, and like him, they certainly weren’t beanpoles.
He’d taken them to every dress shop in Greenville, Dallas, and even Austin trying to find a dress for their mother’s best friend’s wedding in July, but they’d found nothing suitable in their size. Then they’d moved to Celeste, and Dixie had seen the sign for The Perfect Dress just down the street from the house Graham had bought. When she looked it up on the internet, they’d found the place made customized wedding, bridesmaid, and prom dresses—but only for plus-size women.
“Daddy, will you run by there on your way to work? It might be too late for us to get anything special made, so get ready to beg or bribe,” Dixie said.
He’d gotten used to doing all things a mother should do from the time the girls were born. His ex-wife, Rita, just flat out didn’t have a drop of mothering instinct, and once she’d found out that his folks controlled the family money and weren’t happy with his eloping right out of high school, she wasn’t interested in being married. She’d left him when the girls were barely two years old.
Yet last winter she’d called and wanted to see the twins. He’d let them make the choice. They agreed to meet her for ice cream but only for an hour. From what little they’d said about it, it had been like meeting a stranger. He could tell they were relieved when she didn’t call again for two months. That time it was to ask if they would be in her best friend’s wedding as junior bridesmaids. They agreed to spend the day with Rita, but they wouldn’t say yes to staying overnight. That meant Graham would drive them to Dallas early that morning and pick them up after the wedding reception.
“We should have big ball gowns so we really would look like cotton candy,” Tabby said. “With one of them big southern flounce collars and a wide satin sash. That’ll teach Mother to just tell us a color and to pick out our own style. I still think she was ashamed of us. She’s so short and tiny, and she wanted daughters that looked like her. She said that she recognized us that day because we reminded her of Aunt Alice.”