The Bride Wore Cream

Dawn Denham

Word Count 232

I bought her off a Filenes rack for ninety bucks at the mall. She was creamy, not white and fell just below my knees. My form was in tiptop shape: five feet, five and three quarters inches, 124 pounds, miles of road in my cyclist legs. It’s possible I’ve never looked better. I was 25 years old. What is a scalloped lace dress? I type into Google, because scallop remains a mollusk in my mind.

I didn’t wear her only once. I bought her in May after he proposed and first wore her to another wedding, his brother’s, who said to me as I hugged him congratulations, “I can’t believe you’re at my wedding.” Once, he’d been my sweetheart when we were thirteen and living in our small country towns. No one ever told me only the bride wears white at the wedding. (But I told you, she was cream.) 

I didn’t recognize the shape of me for a long time. I do now, here at 59 and unable to slip into that dress anymore. It’s OK. I don’t want to. I remember enough to be able to investigate and find her all over the web. A chocolate number at Nordstrom confirms I know what I thought I knew about lace and design. History. Not so easily accomplished in all other realms of our now ended matrimony. The investigation is still ongoing.  

Dawn lives, writes, and teaches in north central Mississippi. Her nonfiction has appeared in Barnstorm, Brevity, Literary Mama, Past-Ten, Poets&Writers, Solstice, Waterwheel Review, and Zone 3.