Chapter 5 — Please Stand

Hours later the ballroom glittered under its chandeliers, champagne moving through the room, and Amber sat smiling beside my son, certain she had arranged one final humiliation for the country woman who had dared to be his mother.

Then the master of ceremonies lifted his microphone.

“Bride and groom, please stand.” Garnet rose.

Amber tried to.

There was a sharp, loud sound of fabric tearing — a sound that cut clean through the music and the chatter and stopped both.

The back of Amber’s designer gown had stayed fixed to the chair, and as she came up the seams of it opened, several at once, in a long ripping line.