THE WEDDING DRESS
1912
Emily Canton is the 22-year-old daughter of a rich family. While she was in college, she fell in love with 23-year-old Daniel Ludlow, who was of a lower social class but loved her for her mind as well as her beauty. They were friends in addition to partners.
After college, Daniel left Emily to play baseball professionally. Because this required traveling, he wrote to Emily every week. He didn’t call her (since back then, phone calls cost a lot of money), but he assumed that his letters would persuade Emily to wait for him (not knowing that Emily’s dad hid the letters to “help” Emily find someone he deemed more worthy).
After 5 months, Daniel realized that his love for Emily was greater than his love for baseball, so he quit the sport and landed a secure job as a banker. When he finds Emily, he is heartbroken to learn that she has already moved on to the 28-year-old Philip Saltonstall, son of the town’s richest family.
“From the moment he said hello to her in the college library, there’d been a camaraderie between them. As if the marching music in their souls tapped out the same rhythm. But during his five-month absence, she’d changed her tune” (90).
Philip is only attracted to Emily’s beauty and her social standing (and his parents’ promise of getting his inheritance if he marries her), but he and Emily do not know of each other’s deepest secrets, fears, or dreams even when they are engaged! He repeatedly sneaks off with his mistress (Emmeline Graves), even in public! And he also rats out Emily to the police that she’s been “violating a Jim Crow Law” by rousing up commotion from giving business to a talented coloured seamstress (Taffy Hayes) to protect their reputation, but lies about doing so.
Meanwhile, Emily is struggling with following her heart while trying to please everyone around her. She still loves Daniel, but she knows how much her parents want her to marry Philip (since her mother started getting invited to exclusive club events, and her father’s exchange business started doing better with the Saltonstall partnership). And everyone wants Emily to wear the heavy, restricting gown that’s made by the rude, white, reputable seamstress (Mrs. Caruthers - who won’t even listen to her request of loosening the waistline for more than a quarter-inch, even though she’s getting paid, because she believes she has a valuable expertise and reputation to maintain). However, Emily sneakily continues business with the friendly Taffy Hayes anyways, who sows an absolutely gorgeous, light dress with gold thread.
“‘Do you know why I was so long at Miss Hayes’s this afternoon? Because she felt like a sister to me. As if I’d known her my whole life.’ // ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing. What on earth could you have in common with a colored dressmaker?’ // ‘Fashion and fabric. Books. Music. Jesus. We spoke of fall afternoons and love for our families. We’re both sad over the injustices in our city, with chain gangs, with women’s votes, with separate but equal. We talked about weddings, marriage, and babies’” (148).
“If she couldn’t go to Taffy, she’d have Big Mike bring Taffy here. To Highland Avenue” (149).
“When she looked at Taffy, listened to her talk, Emily felt a kinship with the older colored woman. More than just a common faith in Jesus, but a sense of feeling… trapped. Locked in by society, expectation, and the wants of others” (168).
The day of the wedding, Emily is about to give in to everyone’s expectations with their choice of spouse, dress, and maid of honor (being someone she’s not close with, even thought she would prefer the family maid Molly, but can’t have actual maid to be the maid of honor at the social event of the year, where many people of high status come just as an excuse to party).
But at the last minute, Emily follows her heart by changing into the Taffy Hayes dress and running off with Daniel. Together, they have a son (Daniel Jr.), who then has a son (Colby).
1939
Emily gifted her Taffy Hayes original to Mary Grace, a sweet poor girl who she barely knew. The dress fit Mary Grace like a glove, not requiring any alterations. In this dress, Mary Grace married Thomas, who became a preacher. They live a happy marriage as they grow old together (both being around 90 when Charlotte meets them).
“Thomas put on his glasses and leaned in to see the photograph. ‘Who’s the young, beautiful lady I’m standing next to?’ // Mary Grace chottled. ‘I was in my late thirties and dreading turning forty, thinking it was so old.’ // ‘Bet you’d trade now if you could, wouldn’t you, love?’ Thomas said. // ‘In a gnat’s breath.’ // Maybe they’d want to trade with Charlotte or Hillary, but Charlotte wanted to trade with them. Even just for a moment. To know what it felt like to love for seventy-two years. To tell a story in perfect harmony. To still hear she was the prettiest bride in Birmingham” (233).
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1968
Mary Grace and Thomas sold their home to Hillary’s parents when Hillary Saltonstall (descendant of Philip’s brother, Paul) was 10 years old. When they were moving out, the last item they had left to pack was the dress, but since their truck was already full and they no longer had a need for the dress, they decided to keep it in its trunk in the basement for Hillary to hopefully discover one day.
Hillary did indeed find the dress years later, and she married Joel Miller while wearing it right before he headed off to war. Unfortunately, he died in battle six months later. Hillary was so heartbroken that she threw her dress and Joel’s dog tags into the trunk and welded the trunk shut with a torch.
“‘Just drive.’ An ashen-faced Hillary rolled down her window and hung her head out. Her left hand crossed her body and white-knuckled the door handle. ‘So God set me up in 1957 to be a widow? To marry a man six months before his end-of-life number was called?’ She smashed the door with her right fist. ‘I am never going to step inside a church again.’ // …’What if marrying Joel wasn’t about you? What if marrying Joel was about him?’ // ‘Getting married was about both of us.’ // ‘But only one of you, using your theory, was slated to end his life in six months. What if marrying Joel was about sending a young man off to war, loved, happy, comforted by the idea of warm fires and a beautiful wife waiting for him at home? What if thinking of you, remembering your wedding, making love, your friendship and laughter… were the only things that kept Joel going on those nights he was scared and lonely, cold and hungry, miserable as I’m sure only a man at war could be?’” (236-237).
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Present day
Colby Ludlow (Daniel Jr.’s son) married Noelia, but the two had an unhappy marriage. While Colby taught at a university for a year, he fell in love with one of his students (Phoebe Malone). They had an affair and conceived Charlotte Malone. When Colby’s teaching gig was up, he moved back home, away from Phoebe, and he asked Phoebe to keep his association with Charlotte a secret. He didn’t want news of his affair to negatively affect his reputation.
Phoebe moved to the vicinity of Colby, and she raised Charlotte on her own. When she sent a letter to Colby to ask for child support and to meet 11-year-old Charlotte, Noelia was the one who came across the letter first and hid it before Colby saw it. She figured that Phoebe and Charlotte could continue getting by as they have been doing, and Noelia didn’t want to risk any more stress in her already stressed marriage.
One year later, Phoebe dies in a car accident, and Charlotte is seemingly left as an orphan with no siblings. An elderly later named Gertrude took her in to spare her from having to go to foster care.
Years later, Charlotte opened her own bridal shop (Malone & Co.) where she sells gowns with her best friend (Dixie). Around this time, Noelia divorces Colby (who later passes away), and she comes across Phoebe’s old letter that she once hid. Noelia feels guilty for having caused Charlotte to grow up without a father so she anonymously sends Charlotte’s business a $100,000 donation, which Charlotte uses to renovate the shop.
“I think God uses imperfect people to do whatever He wants. He uses me to help brides get ready” (222).
When Charlotte becomes 30, she gets engaged to Tim (a 32-year-old architect) merely two months after meeting him. As their wedding date approaches, both of them start to get cold feet about whether or not they want to commit to each other romantically (even though they are great friends).
Charlotte goes to Red Mountain to think and pray about whether her marriage to Tim is her calling, but there’s an auction going on. She wonders what stories the vintage items have seen.
“A dull, tired rolltop dress caught her eye. Charlotte stopped in front of it and smoothed her hand along the surface. If the grain could talk, what stories would it tell? // Of a husband figuring the family finances? Or of a child working through a homework problem? Of a mama writing a letter to the folks back home? // How many men and women sat at this desk? One or hundreds? What were their hopes and dreams? // One piece of furniture surviving time. Was that what she wanted? To survive, to be part of something important?” (5).
The item that really catches Charlotte’s attention is a trunk (that the auctioneer, wearing purple, says is for a bride), so she buys it with her $1,000 bid (and the receipt that the auctioneer hands her mysteriously says “redeemed”).
Afterwards, Charlotte and Tim get in an argument about her spending a large amount of money without knowing what’s in the trunk, and they soon call off the wedding (thinking that if they aren’t completely sold on each other, then what’s the point?). Charlotte puts off looking for ways to open the welded trunk both because she doesn’t have the tools and because it reminds her of her argument with Tim. But she copes with her grief by being productive in other ways.
“Open the trunk?... It’s welded shut, Dix. A hammer and screwdriver can’t undo welded metal. If they can, I’m never driving over a bridge again” (97).
“You hole up in bed with tissues, I work. Move forward. Forget the past… When Mama died and I had to move in with Gert, I cried for a while, told Gert I was too sick to go to school. But after a month of crying every night, I stopped. Tears weren’t going to raise Mama from the dead. They weren’t going to bring me a father or grandparents. So I mourned Mama by doing something. I got up, went to school, conquered fractions, grasped grammar, became the first one picked for volleyball in gym class. I was going to make Mama proud… Tears aren’t going to bring Tim back either. So I work. I make Mama proud” (98-99).
“She, Charlotte Malone, could soar high and wide all on her own. She didn’t need a man, a family, or her own Cinderella wedding to validate her. She’d proven she could make it on her own and created a good, safe, dependable life she loved” (118).
Charlotte and Tim remain friends (even though “ex-Fiance Tim” looks a lot like “Friend Tim”, and likewise for Charlotte), but Charlotte gets jealous when Tim’s beautiful ex-girlfriend Kim tries to get back together with Tim. Tim leads Kim on and he tries to figure out what his feelings are. However, once Tim has a near-death experience from a motorbike accident, he realizes in his recovery how the person he cares about the most is Charlotte (not Kim). After he heals, he sells his dirt bikes (so that he can finally grow up), helps Charlotte discover the hidden branches of her family tree, and marries her while she wears the one-of-a-kind dress (which fits Charlotte like a glove).
“When he’d loaded his last bike into the truck bed of his final customer, the tightness in his chest released and he understood how long he’d been hanging on to something God had asked him to surrender. // He was free. He thought racing made him free, took the edge off, allowed him to burn off stress and energy, be adventurous. No. Racing kept him in bondage. He couldn’t not race. Other factors in his life had gone cold, waiting for him on back burners, for him to get around to them. // Like taking up his guitar again. Giving more attention to his career. Settling down. Marriage. Time with his friend, Jesus” (327).