Chapter Thirty The Cathedral of White
The morning of the wedding did not feel like a beginning. It felt like the final closing of a heavy iron book.
I was woken up at four in the morning by a team of women who moved with the quiet speed of ghosts. They did not speak to me. They spoke at me as they discussed my skin tone and the placement of the veil as if I were a statue they were preparing for a museum. I sat in a silk robe and stared out the window at the grey New York dawn while they brushed my hair a thousand times and painted my face into a mask of bridal perfection.
Then came the dress.
It took four women to lift the gown. It was a masterpiece of heavy ivory silk stiff with millions of tiny seed pearls and antique lace that looked like frozen spiderwebs. When I stepped into it th
