Prom night began with my father crying.
He tried to hide it.
I came downstairs at six forty-five wearing Mom's dress, and Dad was standing near the front window pretending to adjust the blinds.
When he turned around, his mouth opened but no sound came out.
For once, Shirley wasn't in the room.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
"Is something wrong?"
Dad shook his head.
Then he covered his mouth.
I had never seen my father cry openly after Mom's funeral.
Not even at the service.
Now his eyes filled almost instantly.
"You look like her."
The words were barely audible.
I looked down at the dress.
"I know."
He crossed the room and stopped in front of me.
His hands hovered near my shoulders as though he wanted to hug me but was afraid of wrinkling the fabric.
"She would have—"
He stopped.
I knew what he meant.
She would have loved this.
She would have been here.
She would have taken fifty photographs and fixed my hair twice and told Dad not to embarrass me.
For one fragile moment, the anger between us disappeared.
I stepped forward and hugged him.
His arms tightened around me.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
I wasn't sure what he meant.
For remarrying so quickly.
For letting Shirley remove Mom's belongings.
For asking me, over and over, to make myself smaller so his new marriage would remain comfortable.
Maybe he meant all of it.
Before I could ask, the doorbell rang.
Gary stood on the porch holding a small corsage and wearing a dark suit that looked slightly unfamiliar on him.
He saw me.
Then he stopped.
Actually stopped.
His hand remained on the doorknob.
I smiled.
"That's a very reassuring reaction."
Gary blinked.
"Sorry."
"Bad?"
"No."
He shook his head.
"No, definitely not bad."
Dad laughed behind me.
Gary looked embarrassed.
"You look—"
He paused.
"Don't overthink it."
"I'm trying not to."
"You're failing."
"Beautiful," he said.
Something about the plainness of the word made my throat tighten.
"Thank you."
He pinned nothing to the dress because he'd remembered me saying I didn't want holes in Mom's fabric. Instead, he had chosen a wrist corsage.
That detail mattered more than he knew.
Dad took photographs on the front porch.
In one, Gary was blinking.
In another, I was laughing.
In the third, I looked directly at the camera and, for half a second, imagined Mom behind it.
Then Shirley came downstairs.
She was wearing a robe.
"Aren't you coming?" I asked.
She had volunteered to chaperone weeks earlier, something I'd tried not to think about.
"Later."
"What are you wearing?"
She smiled.
"You'll see."
The answer made the uneasy feeling return.
I glanced at Dad.
He looked away.
That bothered me.
"Do you know?"
"Know what?"
"What she's wearing."
Dad cleared his throat.
"You two should get going."
Gary watched the exchange without saying anything.
I considered pushing.
Then I looked at the clock.
We were already late.
So I let it go.
That decision would bother me for a long time.
The school gym had been transformed with strings of warm lights, rented drapes, paper decorations, and enough artificial flowers to conceal most of the basketball equipment.
Someone had placed small electric candles on the tables.
Music thudded through speakers near the stage.
For the first time in months, I relaxed.
Friends surrounded us.
Madison screamed when she saw the dress.
"Oh my God."
"Too much?"
"Are you kidding?"
She walked around me slowly.
"Your mother made this?"
"Every stitch."
"It's beautiful."
Several other people asked about it.
Each time I told them Mom had made it before she died, I expected the familiar pity.
Instead, most simply touched my arm or told me she had been talented.
It felt good to say her name without having the room become uncomfortable.
For once, remembering her didn't feel like something I needed to apologize for.
Gary and I danced badly.
Mom had predicted correctly.
He was almost as awkward as I was.
"You know this isn't chemistry," I told him after he stepped on my shoe.
"That explains why nothing is working."
"You could try moving with the music."
"I am."
"Which song are you hearing?"
He laughed.
I hadn't laughed that freely in months.
For nearly an hour, the night became what Mom had wanted for me.
Not a memorial.
Not a grief ritual.
Prom.
We took photographs.
We ate dry little desserts.
Gary complained that the punch tasted like melted candy.
I forgot about Shirley.
Then the side doors opened.
The chaperoning parents began arriving in small groups.
Teachers greeted them near the entrance.
I was standing beside Gary when Madison's expression suddenly changed.
Her smile disappeared.
"What?"
She didn't answer.
She was looking over my shoulder.
I turned.
At first, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.
Shirley stood inside the doorway.
Dad was beside her.
She was smiling.
And she was wearing my mother's dress.
Not literally.
Mine was still on my body.
But the dress on Shirley was such an exact copy that for several seconds I felt as though I were looking into a distorted mirror.
The same pale blue.
The same strapless neckline.
The same shape through the waist.
The same sweep of fabric toward the floor.
Even the small construction details Mom had designed herself were there.
I couldn't breathe.
Gary looked from Shirley to me.
"What the hell?"
People nearby began noticing.
One girl whispered something to her boyfriend.
A parent turned.
Then another.
Shirley walked toward us.
Every step made the copied dress move the same way mine moved.
That was the worst part.
Someone had studied Mom's work carefully enough to reproduce not merely its appearance but its behavior.
The mysterious seamstress.
The garment bag.
The cleaning sessions.
The questions about lining and fabric.
The tiny pin marks.
Everything rearranged itself inside my head at once.
Shirley hadn't been cleaning my bedroom.
She had been studying the dress.
Photographing it.
Measuring it.
Maybe even tracing parts of it.
Three months of planning.
For this.
I looked at Dad.
His face told me something I didn't want to know.
"You knew."
His eyes dropped.
"Dad."
"I'm sorry."
The gym seemed to tilt.
"You knew?"
Shirley reached us before he answered.
She looked me up and down.
Then she smiled.
"Well."
Her gaze moved deliberately over my dress.
"Look at us."
I could barely speak.
"Why?"
She pretended not to understand.
"Why what?"
"Why are you wearing that?"
"It's a dress."
"No."
My voice sharpened.
"It's her dress."
People around us had gone quiet enough that I could hear the music continuing from the speakers.
Shirley's smile tightened.
"Technically, it's my dress."
"You copied Mom's."
She shrugged.
"Designs get copied every day."
"Not this one."
Dad touched my arm.
"Sweetheart—"
I pulled away.
"No."
His hand fell.
Shirley leaned closer.
Her perfume reached me before her words did, heavy and floral and completely unlike Mom's faint lavender hand cream.
She lowered her voice.
"You honestly thought you were going to be the only special person here tonight?"
For a moment, I couldn't process the cruelty because it was too deliberate.
Then I understood.
This wasn't about fashion.
It wasn't even about embarrassing me.
It was about Mom.
Shirley had removed her photographs.
Packed away her clothes.
Cleared her sewing room.
Disposed of nearly every visible piece of her life.
But she couldn't remove the resemblance between my face and hers.
And tonight, when I walked downstairs wearing the last dress Mom had ever made, Shirley had seen something she couldn't tolerate.
A room full of people might look at me and remember my mother.
So Shirley had created her own version.
A copy.
A replacement.
Something designed to say that what Mom made wasn't unique after all.
I looked at Dad.
"Why did you let her do this?"
He swallowed.
"I told her it wasn't a good idea."
"That's not what I asked."
"I'm sorry."
Again.
Those useless words.
I'm sorry.
He had known.
Maybe not about the bedroom.
Maybe not about how Shirley had obtained the measurements.
But he had seen the copied dress before tonight.
And still he had brought her here.
My vision blurred.
I refused to cry in front of Shirley.
Around us, whispers spread.
A few students laughed uncertainly because they didn't understand.
Others did.
Madison looked furious.
Gary had become completely still.
Shirley straightened her shoulders as though the attention pleased her.
That was when I realized staying would give her exactly what she wanted.
Every photograph taken that night would show two versions of Mom's dress.
Every conversation would become about Shirley's stunt.
The memory Mom had made for me would become something people associated with humiliation.
I turned toward the exit.
Gary caught my hand.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop me.
"Wait."
I looked at him.
"Gary, please."
"Don't leave."
"I can't stay here."
"Yes, you can."
I stared at him.
He glanced past me toward Shirley.
His expression had changed.
The awkward boy who overthought dance steps was gone.
Something precise had taken his place.
"What are you doing?"
Gary lowered his voice.
"There's something you need to know."
"What?"
His eyes moved briefly toward my father.
Then back to me.
"Last night, someone sent me photographs."
I stopped breathing.
"What photographs?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Across the gym, the large projection screen above the stage still displayed the prom logo.
Gary looked at it.
Then at Shirley.
Then he leaned closer.
"Your stepmother made one mistake."
My fingers tightened around his hand.
"What mistake?"
Gary's gaze remained fixed on the stage.
"She thought nobody knew what she had been doing in your bedroom."
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Gary Showed Me What Shirley Had Been Doing While I Was Gone—and My Father Finally Saw How Far She Had Gone
Eight Days Before My Mother Died, She Finished the Dress She Knew She Would Never See Me Wear
Part 4 of 10
