Apron-Strings

“The wedding will be in the Close,” Mrs. Milo insists, though the florist would rather decorate the church—and the orphan basket stands in plain sight. In this rectory, even a wedding bower becomes a test of who gets to make the rules.

As preparations gather pace for Hattie Balcome’s wedding, the parish rectory is full of flowers, sharp opinions and carefully managed appearances. Mrs. Milo, elegant and commanding, means to keep her household—and the ceremony—exactly as she wants them. Her daughter Susan’s open-hearted care for the orphan boys nearby points toward a very different idea of what a mother’s love should embrace. With comic exchanges giving way to tender questions about children, duty and expectation, the story asks: whose idea of a mother will shape this family?

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