A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery by Melissa Bourbon Page A

She was trying to communicate with me… or maybe it was me that hadn’t figured out how to hear her. Either way, our interaction was more one-sided than I liked. I talked. She listened. And flung clothes out of the closet, moved my sewing notions, and flipped pages of books and magazines to communicate what she wanted with me.
    “Mrs. James asked me to help her with the pageant,” I continued as I pulled a container of Nana’s goat cheese from the refrigerator, a box of crackers from the cupboard, and poured myself a tall glass of sweet tea. “Have you ever seen their atelier? Fourteen gowns, and theywere all spectacular. It was like walking into a showroom. They do all the beading by hand. Did you know people get on their schedule when their daughters are newborns? They’d have to. All that handwork is so time-consuming, but you know, I could feel their love for it all. And I found out they made Nana’s Margaret gown—”
    I stopped short as the red-and-white-checkerboard curtains under the sink fluttered suddenly and the plantation shutters on the window above rattled. The lights, which I hadn’t switched on, flickered, and the trickling sound of water filling the mechanisms of the freezer’s ice maker magnified. “What? What’s wrong?”
    The Dutch door leading to the back porch flung open. “Thelma Louise,” Nana called over her shoulder. “You stay put, you hear?” As she stepped out of her navy blue Crocs and turned toward me, the mayhem in the kitchen instantly stopped.
    “Hey, Nana.”
    My grandmother, standing there in her pristine white socks, stared at me. “Child, what in heaven’s name are you doin’?”
    I was standing in the center of the kitchen, the box of crackers under my arm, the container of chèvre in one hand, the class of sweet tea in the other, and a surprised expression on my face. It was as if I’d been frozen for a moment and Nana’s voice brought me back. “I was just… er… getting ready to have some of your cheese,” I finished. I’d almost revealed the secret—that I’d been chatting away with Meemaw—but the chaotic interruption made me hold my tongue and a sliver of skin at the hairline on my forehead tingled. I felt it was a sign she didn’t want Nana to know about her yet.
    “Well, what are you waitin’ for?” She took the crackerbox and plopped down at the table, her fingers fluttering to her hairline, almost as if she were mirroring me. I started, realizing that the prickling sensation stemmed from the exact spot where all the Cassidy women’s dark hair streaked blond. Odd, I thought. Were we feeling the same thing, or was it a coincidence? Did she sense Loretta Mae?
    “You buy the same crackers Meemaw did,” Nana said.
    I set two plates and a knife on the table and she began spreading the chèvre, filling up both the plates with the cracker rounds.
    “Oh.” I looked at the box, realizing that it was the same brand. “I hadn’t realized.”
    “You’re more like her than your mama or me ever were. You know that?”
    I nodded. I was well into my thirties, but I felt like I was finally figuring out who I was and what I wanted and to hear that I reminded Nana of her mother filled me with a comfortable sense of home. “I didn’t think I wanted to come back to Bliss,” I said, “but Meemaw was right.”
    “Meemaw was always right. What Meemaw wanted, Meemaw got.” She chuckled. “Right down to the crackers,” she said, pointing to the box. “I bet you didn’t even know you had a hankering for ’em when you bought ’em.” She nodded, as if she’d experienced the very same thing. “Happens to me all the time. I don’t know what I want, then, bam!” She slammed her open palm down on the table. “It hits me and a memory of Meemaw hits me at the same time. She had a gift, and sometimes…” She trailed off for a minute, staring off in the distance. “Sometimes I think she’s still here.”
    Sometimes she is, I wanted to say.
    As we