The Marriage of Innis Wilkinson by Lauren H Brandenburg

Author:Lauren H Brandenburg
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782643005
Publisher: Lion Hudson LTD
Published: 2020-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Margarette needed a neutral opinion – someone to help her honestly analyze the situation; an unbiased third party. So she phoned the first non-Blackwell/Toft she could think of. Velveteen Price.

Velveteen ushered Margarette inside the Price cottage. Margarette was very familiar with the cottage, as not only had she attended the Prices’ Christmas party, but the cottage had once belonged to her grandmother. She knew all too well what the place had looked like before the Prices moved in. Velveteen had transformed the cottage from a bad attempt at mid-century modern to a rustic-chic mini palace. The wallpaper had been stripped and the carpet pulled; however, Velveteen had left the gaudy stained-glass bee hanging in the kitchen. Margarette had no doubt that at one time the light fixture had been a very expensive purchase on her grandmother’s part, but it now looked perfectly comfortable glowing in the Prices’ farmhouse-style kitchen. The illuminated bug had scared her as a child, but now it served as a sweet reminder of her childhood.

“Margarette, I’m so glad you called. Please, have a seat… a cup of tea, a sweet? I just pulled a tart out of the oven, my very own recipe. You do like tarts, don’t you?”

Margarette did. She still had four of them in her freezer left over from the engagement party.

“Tea would be lovely. And I never pass on a tart.” She knew she shouldn’t… But if I keep eating, then surely I’ll be too big for that monstrosity of a dress. She chuckled. Yes, that’s the solution. I start a sweet treat diet now, and by the wedding day no amount of alteration will make that dress work… She stopped this train of thought, surprised at how callous she was becoming, and set the large white box and her wedding notebook on the couch, gently moving aside the baby paraphernalia.

Velveteen placed Margarette’s slice of tart and cup of tea on the coffee table. She looked fabulous. Ridiculously fabulous considering she’d given birth a little over a week ago. Even in her yoga pants and long T-shirt she appeared perfectly put together. She was wearing make-up, and already looked smaller than she had before she announced her pregnancy.

“All right. Show it to me.”

Margarette pointed to the box.

“It can’t be that bad.”

Margarette sat slumped on the sofa, hiding her face with a cushion. She was exhausted after another week of trying to teach a class while her students were way too distracted by the festival to take in her talk about the history of the town’s founding father.

“Are you telling me it’s so bad you can’t even look at it?”

Margarette nodded and sighed softly as Velveteen stepped over and placed the sleeping baby, Agnes Price, in her arms. Agnes. It was a name that had thrilled the Blackwells and devastated the Tofts, leaving many of Margarette’s relatives feeling there was no further hope for the Price family, having named their daughter after the recently deceased Granny Blackwell.

“Will it, like, burn my eyes out or something?”

Margarette nodded again.

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