Chapter 6: The Tailor's Fitting
The small boutique on the edge of town smelled of steam, wool, and forgotten ambition. Julian pushed the glass door open, the brass bell ringing with a sharp, clear note that made the middle-aged seamstress look up from her cutting table. Her name was Mrs. Gable, and according to Arthur Vance’s records, she had sewn Margaret’s maternity dresses twenty-eight years ago before Eleanor drove her out of the city. Julian placed a thick envelope of cash and a photograph of my mother on the counter without a word of introduction. Mrs. Gable stared at the image, her hands going still against the dark fabric, recognition softening the hard lines around her mouth. She didn't ask questions; she just nodded once, pulled a measuring tape from around her neck, and beckoned me toward the three-sided mirror in the corner. For the next hour, she fitted me in a dress of dark forest wool, nothing like the red velvet disaster Eleanor had forced me into on the night of the gala. Julian sat in a worn leather armchair by the radiator, watching the door and keeping guard while Mrs. Gable hemmed the skirt and pressed the seams with a hot iron. She whispered stories about my mother—how Margaret used to sit in that very back room and sketch designs when she was hiding from her mother's wrath. As the hem was pinned, I caught my reflection in the mirror, noticing how much I looked like the woman in the faded photographs Vance had given us. The fragile, terrified girl in the ballroom was beginning to vanish, replaced by someone who understood that survival required more than running away. Mrs. Gable packed the finished dress into a heavy canvas garment bag, handed it to Julian, and told us to use the back alley exit when we left. The sense of an invisible network of protectors began to settle over me, people who had remembered Margaret's kindness and were willing to risk Eleanor's wrath to see justice done. We drove back to the motel under a heavy gray sky that threatened rain, the garment bag resting safely in the back seat beside the manila folder of legal evidence.
