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I should have walked straight out of that stall and confronted all three of them on the spot.
Instead, I told myself I’d wait until after the honeymoon, when things were calmer, when I could raise it without looking like exactly the kind of controlling mother-in-law Camille clearly already believed me to be.
By morning, that single night of hesitation had become its own punishment.
After finding the note, I called Miles.
Straight to voicemail.
I sent a message explaining, as steadily as I could manage, that something terrible had happened and that I needed him to call me back immediately.
Camille answered his phone instead.
Camille answered his phone instead.
She told me not to bother him — he was getting dressed, this was his day, surely I understood that. Then she suggested, almost gently, that perhaps I should simply stay home rather than show up “looking for sympathy.”
I opened my closet.
My pale blue mother-of-the-groom dress had been cut into ribbons on its hanger.
My jewelry box, the one that had sat on that dresser for thirty years, was simply gone.
Simply gone.