So we still haven't gotten to the ball with this chapter. Sorry, Lacey wanted her turn. I keep thinking this story is a chapter or two from being complete and then the next chapter doesn't get us very far in the timeline.

Chapter 7: Crafting Can Channel Your Feelings Into Productive Action

After being fitted up for alterations in the ball gown after the spa outing (naturally the seamstress could not alter the gown until Mary selected her shoes and none of the shoes from the first store that another servant had brought back were the right size as the servant had somehow thought that Mary was a size six instead of a size nine, so the seamstress had told her that they should all go ahead and go to the spa as more shoes needed to be fetched and hemming the gown would not take too long), Mary first tried to find Richard and then when he did not seem to be about, went to the nursery to see the children.

However, Mary was not really needed in the nursery as the many temporary nannies and assistants had organized the children's activities. A couple of the older children, Elizabeth's oldest boys, were just heading outside to the gardens when Mary arrived. Mary opted to stay in the nursery, hoping that Richard might find her more easily there when he turned up. Georgiana's two boys were ignoring an assortment of what appeared to be brand new toys, to play with the longest wooden train track Mary had ever seen, which was being made ever longer by two adults, while Elizabeth's daughter played with Barbies in an enormous Barbie house as assisted by another lady.

While there was a long table set up with Mother's Day crafts on it, Lacey was the only child there. There was another lady who was dutifully manning that table.

Mary saw that Lacey was busy making an oversized card out of heavy yellow cardstock, stickers, fake gems, glue and glitter. She sidled up to her and asked, "Do you need any help, Lacey?"

Lacey shook her head, "I want to do it myself, to show Mommy how much I love her and miss her." She then directed, "Go sit over there. It is a surprise. I will show you when I am done."

Mary dutifully took the seat Lacey pointed to across from her. Lacey kept diligently working, adding more and more embellishments. She told Mary, "Mommy likes sparkling things."

Once the front was fully decorated, Lacey picked up a purple crayon and began writing her message on the front. Mary thought it would have made more sense to write the message before decorating the card, but of course said nothing. Then Lacey set that portion of the card aside and picked up a perfectly cropped large white square which would later be glued inside (Mary could tell because a pre-made example was on display). Because of the supplies between them, Mary could not quite see what Mary was writing, but she was impressed that as a child of six, Lacey was confidently writing something.

Mary thought perhaps that it was mere scribbles as she had seen other children do before they could truly write, but was disabused of that notion when Lacey began asking how to spell certain words. Mary would spell the word aloud as she wrote it on another piece of paper in large block letters and hold it up until Lacey said, "done."

Lacey did not seem to believe Mary when it came to the word "beautiful" (perhaps because of all the vowels), shaking her head in negation, but faithfully seemed to copy down "dear," "day," "Aruba," "swimming," "brother," "Charlie," "Mary," "Catherine," "gown" and "Belle." Lacey diligently wrote and then used a glue stick to glue the sheet onto the card. Then she began to draw pictures on the inside with her crayons. Finally she declared, "I am finished, Mary." She then thrust the card into Mary's hand and asked, "Do you think Mommy will like it?"

Mary read on the front: Habby Mommy Da bi Lacey. She took her time in admiring all the artwork, commenting on the flowers Lacey had made with purple gems and the border made of stickers. She then opened the card and read:

Dear Mommy

I hop yoo hab a habby Mommy Da you are so bootifull. I mis yu and luv yu vary mutch. Is aruba fun? i wanta go swimming at the bitch. when wil I sea brother Charlie? I am havin fun with Daddy and Mary. We go in are car to ant Caterine hows and sea lots of ants and unkles. Im gonna war a gown lick Belle and dans at the ball wit Daddy.

luv

Lacey

Mary stifled a laugh when she read Lacey's spelling of "beach." She wondered if Caroline was the sort of mother who would find all the misspellings amusing and adorable (as Mary did) or would simply find the card defective.

Over the years Mary had received a few cards from her students, but never one from a child as young as Lacey which contained so much writing. Generally children of her age might have a few stick figures and sign their names. She always thanked the children and asked them to tell her about the drawings as she had made a mistake early on of thinking she could interpret them for herself.

As Lacey's card also contained some stick figures, Mary asked, "Who are these people?"

"That's my family," Lacey explained about the four figures. "There is Daddy," she said, pointing to the largest figure drawn in brown with a roughly triangular-shaped head and a big smile, "and me," pointing to a smaller brown figure right next to the Daddy which had a smaller smile and a few strands of pink hair.

There was some space and then another figure.

"That is Mommy." This figure had the most detail, an oval head, lots of hair drawn in burnt sienna type color, two dot eyes carefully drawn in blue, a red mouth, necklaces ringing the stick neck and what was clearly a black dress drawn over the stick figure body and even black things at the end of each leg that were pointy and clearly meant to be high heels. "She always wants me to make her pretty. She did not like it when I gave her green hair one time." Lacey gave a little grimace as remembering.

"I think it would be fun to have green hair," Mary encouraged.

"No one really wants green hair," Lacey responded, "and she told me it was ugly."

"But it was just a picture," Mary replied. "What is wrong with having green hair in a picture? It is fun to imagine, even if maybe I wouldn't want green hair in real life."

"Daddy always likes how I draw him," Lacey responded. "He always puts my pictures up on the fridge. I don't know where Mommy keeps my pictures."

Mary had a sudden image of Caroline dutifully thanking Lacey each time and then crumpling her pictures up after a visit and throwing them away. She hoped that wasn't what was happening and hoped that would not be the fate of this card when it was finally gifted to Caroline.

"And who is that?" Mary asked about the smallest stick figure which had the fewest details.

"That is Charlie. He is my brother, but I haven't seen him for a long time. Auntie Louisa is his mommy now. Daddy and I visited him at her house."

"It is a lovely card, Lacey. I like how hard you worked on it, all the decorations and the nice message. You wrote a lot."

"I have to write Mommy a lot," Lacey responded. "Mommy is very busy. Daddy sends her my letters sometimes and sometimes I keep her letters until she sees me. Sometimes she sends me presents, but if there is a card she just signs 'Mommy' and 'I love you' and just things like that."

"Well your mommy is very lucky to have a daughter who makes her such wonderful cards. I wish someone would make me cards like that."

"I have an idea," Lacey told her. "Maybe when Daddy comes back he will make you a card for Mother's Day."

"That is a sweet idea," Mary told her, but then inexplicably (at least to herself) added, "But I am not a Mommy." Mary felt a little lump in her throat right then. Her face must have said it all as Lacey got up from her chair, went around the table and gave Mary a hug.

As she hugged her she said, "But you are nice like a Mommy should be. You are nice to me and Daddy." Lacey broke the hug and said, "I am going to play Barbies now." She ran off to the enormous Barbie palace where Elizabeth's daughter was playing by herself.

Mary was left, feeling a bit bereft. She felt for not the first time that Caroline did not deserve all of Lacey's devotion. As Lacey seemed quite occupied now, Mary told her, "I am going to see where your Daddy went."

"Okay, bye Mary."

As Lacey played Barbies with her cousin Jane, she noticed that among the packages of Barbies piled beside the the Barbie house that had not even been opened yet, was a box set containing a groom Ken, a bride Barbie and two girls who were also dressed up. Lacey brought the box to the nice lady who was playing Barbies with them. She asked, "Could you open this one?" and then later when it was opened asked, "Who are the girls?"

The woman consulted the box and told her, "Those are Stacie and Chelsea."

Lacey knew that. She had a Stacie doll at home and had looked at enough Barbies at the store to have seen a Chelsea doll before. There was a set with a Chelsea doll that came with a little playhouse where Chelsea could sleep on the roof.

It was annoying that grown ups were always answering questions wrong.

"No, who are they in the wedding?"

The woman looked at the pieces that came with the dolls. "Well, there are three bouquets, so maybe they are bridesmaids, but I suppose they could also be flower girls. You can play however you want."

Lacey shook her head in frustration. She knew the nice lady had answered her question, but Lacey realized she had not really asked the question that she wanted to ask. "Are they the man or woman's children?"

"Don't be silly, dear, Barbie and Ken don't have children before they get married. I think Stacie and Chelsea are supposed to be Barbie's little sisters."

Lacey stopped asking questions. She knew the rhyme, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage."

She thought about her Daddy and Mommy. They were married, so they must have loved each other, and then she had arrived. But she did not remember ever living with both Daddy and Mommy. The rhyme did not say anything about divorce or what was supposed to happen after that. Lacey knew that other children in her kindergarten class did not all live with both a Mommy and a Daddy. Brian had a step-Daddy who he called Phil; Phil came to get Brian from class sometimes. And her brother had a different Daddy from Daddy and lived with Aunt Louisa.

Lacey wanted to know if the little girls in the set were getting a new Mommy or a new Daddy.

A few days earlier, Daddy had asked, "Lacey, can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, Daddy," she told him. "I did not tell you that I already knew what my big present was under the tree before I opened it." She also thought to herself, although she did not say it because it would not be keeping a secret, that when Mommy got her for a weekend that she sometimes had a man (he was always called, "Mommy's special friend") with her.

Mommy had told Lacey, "Now don't tell Daddy about Mommy's special friends or else Daddy might not let you visit me." Mommy had sleepovers with her special friends while Lacey went to sleep by herself in her bedroom, with just her big bear for company. Sometimes if Lacey woke up during the night she might hear sounds from Mommy's bedroom. Usually it was the TV playing a movie, but sometimes she could hear other sounds that the movie did not quite cover up. She did not know what those sounds meant, but felt that it was not fair that Mommy did not stay up to watch a movie and have a sleepover with her.

Although most of Mommy's special friends were nice to her, Lacey did not like that she rarely saw the same one more than two or three times. Lacey had quit trying to remember their names. She did not think Daddy wanted her to know about Mommy's special friends as when he had shown her a picture of Mommy in Aruba, the picture was an odd size and part of Mommy's arm was cut off and there was a bit of tan color by her neck that Lacey was pretty sure was part of someone's arm.

Mommy did not like pictures that did not show all of her, or that were not centered, or were not pretty. Mommy had definite ideas of what good pictures were like. Last year, when Mommy visited for Lacey's preschool graduation and toured the classroom, she had asked Lacey, "What's this?" while pointing to a picture of Mommy and Lacey which was on Lacey's family poster (all the kids had made one). The picture was one that Daddy had taken of Mommy holding Lacey in the hospital when she was born. Lacey loved the picture, as Mommy was holding her tight and smiling happily. She also liked how Mommy's hair was a little wild.

"How could you use this picture of me?" Mommy had asked. "I don't look pretty in it. I don't have any makeup on and I am wearing one of those awful hospital gowns. I've sent your daddy lots of good pictures of me."

"I like you in this picture Mommy, because it is you and me when I was a baby." Lacey tried to explain. She did not want to put up pictures of just Mommy without her in them.

"And why did you use this one?" Mommy asked.

It was a picture from one of Lacey's birthdays. Mommy and Daddy were on either side of Lacey as she prepared to blow out the candles on her cake. She liked it because it had both her Mommy and her Daddy in it with her, but now that Lacey was looking at it more closely, she could see that it was not the best picture of Mommy. "Because it is our family."

"I see what we must do," Mommy told her and started working on her phone while the other children were still showing their parents all the crafts and projects they had made this year. Lacey was especially proud of the two handwriting sheets where she had written every letter of the alphabet in capital and lowercase letters. She also wanted Mommy to see the painting she had made of a house with a happy sun above. But she knew she was not supposed to bother Mommy when she was on her phone.

At the graduation ceremony Lacey and her classmates sang songs to their parents. She especially enjoyed singing the songs about jobs and people. The Daddy in the song was a trash man (though the boy next to her kept singing "trash can"), the sister was an artist, and so on. It was a lot to remember and Lacey was proud that she had gotten all the words right. They each also got an award (Lacey's was for "Best Writer") and a diploma with a shiny sticker that Daddy said was a seal.

The next time that Lacey saw Mommy, Mommy took her shopping for a fancy new dress and sparkly shoes. Mommy then had them both get dressed up to get their pictures taken. Lacey remembered doing a lot of sitting around in her fancy dress (which turned out to be itchy from the lace) and sparkly shoes (which felt tight in the toes), while Mommy did own her hair and makeup.

But later it was Lacey's turn. It was kind of fun when Mommy put some shiny lip gloss on Lacey's lips, dotted her cheeks with blush and painted her nails (pink and sparkly to match her dress). She did not like it much when Mommy used the curling iron on her hair as it scared her because it was hot. But afterwards Mommy had looked at both of them in the mirror and said, "We look so pretty!" Lacey thought Mommy did look very fancy, but more importantly, Mommy looked happy.

They then drove to a photo studio and had their pictures taken. It seemed to Lacey that the man took a long time in posing them, but Mommy said that he was an artist and that was what artists did.

Afterwards Lacey sat on a couch and looked at pictures in magazines, feeling bored, hot and itchy, while Mommy and the man looked at the pictures on the screen. She heard her mother say something about retouching the photos and the man assured her that she really did not need any. The man had smiled a lot at Mommy and afterwards gave her his card after he wrote another number on the back. Lacey remembered wondering whether that man would become another one of Mommy's special friends.

At another visit, Lacey was happy to see a photo of her and Mommy on Mommy's wall, but she was surprised to see that there was some writing on the picture, in a fancy script at the bottom.

"What does that say, Mommy?" She asked.

Mommy told her, "It says the year and 'the Bingley girls.' Look at how beautiful we both are!"

"I'm not a Bingley," Lacey insisted. She knew her name was Lacey Anne Fitzwilliam.

"Well only because the judge wouldn't change it, but when you are older, you can tell the judge that you would rather have Mommy's name, or you can just go by Bingley except when you sign things. Anyway, I wanted it to say something that fit the two of us."

"Why didn't you put Mommy and Lacey?" Lacey asked.

"Lacey, then the focus is on me being a Mommy, rather than just a lovely woman. That would never do."

Lacey didn't say anything. At the end of the visit, Mommy gave Lacey some of the photos, including a big framed one that matched the one Mommy had hanging up with the same writing as on Mommy's photograph. When Lacey got home she had her daddy help her swap out that picture for another one that did not have the writing. Lacey liked that other picture better anyway as Mommy had a real smile and you could see her dimple.

Lacey liked Daddy's secret better than Mommy's secret. Daddy had asked her, "Would you like it if Mary became part of our family and lived in our home?"

Lacey imagined Daddy having sleepovers with Mary. Would Mary and Daddy go alone into Daddy's room at night like Mommy's special friends? "You mean became your special friend?" Immediately after Lacey asked, she realized she had said the wrong thing. Maybe now Daddy would find out about Mommy's special friends and she would not be able to visit Mommy.

Daddy looked confused. "You know that Mary is my girlfriend, right?"

Lacey nodded.

"Well, I would like to marry Mary, but only if it is okay with you."

Lacey bounced up and down, "You mean we could keep Mary for always?"

"Yes, that is what it means, and she would become your step-mother."

Lacey had heard the word step-mother before. Cinderella had an evil step-mother who made Cinderella work hard while the step-sisters and step-mother did not do anything but dress up in pretty clothes, clothes kind of like Mommy liked to wear."

"She wouldn't turn into a mean step-mother, would she?" Lacey asked, feeling a little anxious.

Daddy laughed, "Of course not. Mary will stay the same as always, except she would live in our home and be around every day."

"Yes, Daddy. Marry Mary, marry Mary. A Mary is meant to be married, to you." Lacey twirled around and around in happiness until she started to get silly. She grabbed onto Daddy to keep from falling, but then gave him a hug.

"I am so glad you like the idea, Lacey. It is an important decision and I really hope she says yes."

"Why wouldn't she say 'yes' Daddy?" Lacey could not understand why anyone would not want to marry her daddy. He was so nice and if he got angry and yelled, he always apologized and tried to explain. When Mommy got angry and yelled, later she would pretend she didn't yell, that nothing had happened.

"I think she will say 'yes,' I hope she will say 'yes,' but it is a big decision. I am glad you are on board with the whole idea, but it needs to stay a secret from Mary. I want to surprise her and I am not quite sure when I am going to ask her."

"Can it be soon? I want her to stay with us when it is summer."

"Even if I ask her soon and she says 'yes,' it takes time to plan a wedding. Sometimes people don't get married for a year or two. I don't want to rush things for her, even though I would like it to be soon, too."

Lacey agreed to keep Daddy's secret. She now wondered when Daddy would ask Mary, and if she would be a flower girl or a bridesmaid at their wedding. She hoped whatever dress she ended up wearing was not too itchy. Maybe they would dance at the wedding, like Belle danced with the Beast, like people would be dancing tonight.

Lacey was excited for the ball. She and the other children had been told that they could go to the first part of the ball and Aunt Catherine even had a whole bunch of Disney princess costumes hanging up Jane and her to try on. The boys had super hero costumes if they wanted to dress up. Lacey thought it was strange that the boys would wear those, but she did not remember ever seeing prince costumes for boys.

Lacey wanted to be Belle and Jane wanted to be Cinderella in the blue gown. She knew the adults would not be dressed in costumes but instead in fancy ball gowns. She hoped that Mary would look like a princess and Daddy would look like a prince. If Mary danced with Daddy, that would mean she would marry Daddy. Cinderella danced with the Prince and then he found her with her slipper and married her. Belle danced with the Beast and then the Beast married Belle after he turned back into a prince.