By the time prom season arrived, Shirley and I had perfected a system for living in the same house.
We avoided each other whenever possible.
At breakfast, I ate early.
She stayed upstairs.
If she wanted the kitchen in the evening, I studied in my room.
Dad called this improvement.
I called it a ceasefire.
Prom became important to me for reasons I had trouble explaining to anyone.
My friends talked about limousines, photographs, dates, makeup, and who had bought which dress. I nodded along, but none of those things were the point for me.
My dress was already waiting.
Sometimes, late at night, I pulled the garment bag from beneath my bed and unzipped it halfway.
The pale blue fabric always looked slightly different depending on the light.
I rarely removed it.
It felt safer protected.
A few months before prom, my friend Madison asked whether I had chosen a dress.
"My mom made mine."
"Your mom?"
"Before she died."
Madison's expression softened immediately.
I hated when people gave me that look.
"That's incredible," she said.
"She was incredible."
"Can I see it?"
"Prom night."
She grinned. "Fine. Be mysterious."
Gary heard part of the conversation.
He sat beside me in advanced chemistry, where our teacher paired us because Gary actually remembered formulas and I remembered deadlines.
He was quiet without being shy, serious without being dull.
He looked up from his notebook.
"Your mother made your dress?"
"Yes."
"That's pretty cool."
The simplicity of his response relieved me.
No pity.
No careful voice.
Just recognition that the dress mattered.
Gary and I had been friends for most of the year.
He wasn't the kind of boy who performed confidence. He thought before speaking and occasionally paused long enough that people assumed he'd forgotten the conversation.
Usually he was just deciding whether a sentence needed saying.
Two weeks later, he asked me to prom.
We were cleaning glassware after chemistry lab.
He set a beaker upside down on the drying rack.
"So, are you going with anyone?"
"Going where?"
He looked at me.
I smiled. "I know where."
"You're enjoying making this difficult."
"A little."
"Do you want to go with me?"
There were no balloons.
No public sign.
No elaborate performance.
Just Gary, holding a damp dish towel and looking unusually nervous.
"Yes."
He nodded once.
"Good."
"That's all?"
"What else is supposed to happen?"
"I don't know. Fireworks?"
"I can ask the chemistry department."
I laughed.
It was the easiest yes I had given anyone all year.
At home, Dad seemed pleased.
Shirley became interested.
"Gary who?"
"Gary."
"Does Gary have a last name?"
"Most people do."
Dad sighed before Shirley could react.
"Can we please have one dinner without this?"
I returned to my food.
A few days later, Shirley asked what I planned to wear.
I looked at her.
She knew about the dress.
Everyone close to Mom had known.
"My prom dress."
"You mean the one your mother made?"
"Yes."
She took a sip of water.
"Does it still fit?"
"It does."
"You've tried it?"
"Recently."
Something moved across her face.
Interest.
Not sentimental interest.
Assessment.
"It's strapless, isn't it?"
I stopped chewing.
"You remember?"
"I've seen photographs."
"What photographs?"
She looked at Dad.
"Your mother showed me sketches."
I couldn't remember Mom showing her anything.
Maybe she had.
Shirley had been around frequently during the illness.
Still, something about the conversation bothered me.
About three months before prom, Shirley announced that she wanted to clean my room.
I nearly laughed.
"You've never wanted to clean my room."
"It needs a deep clean."
"I clean it."
"You dust."
"That's generally part of cleaning."
She ignored me.
"The carpet should be shampooed. Your curtains could use washing."
"I can handle it."
"I already bought supplies."
She smiled.
"Go spend Saturday with your friends."
I didn't.
That Saturday, I remained home and made it impossible for her to enter my room alone.
The following weekend, she tried again.
This time Dad joined her side.
"She's trying to do something nice."
"Since when does she care about my carpet?"
Dad put both hands on the kitchen counter.
"Please don't turn everything into a battle."
The weariness in his face stopped me.
I went to Madison's house.
When I returned, my room smelled sharply of lemon cleaner.
Nothing looked disturbed.
I checked beneath my bed.
The garment bag remained there.
I opened it.
The dress looked untouched.
I felt ridiculous.
Maybe Dad was right.
Maybe I had reached the point where anything Shirley did appeared suspicious because I expected the worst.
Then it happened again.
"Stay out until dinner," Shirley told me one Saturday.
"Why?"
"I'm using a treatment on the carpet."
"You shampooed it last month."
"There's still a stain near the window."
"What stain?"
She became irritated.
"Do you have to interrogate everything I say?"
I studied her.
"You don't suddenly become obsessed with carpet for no reason."
Her jaw tightened.
Dad entered before she could answer.
"What's happening?"
Shirley exhaled dramatically.
"Nothing. I'm attempting to help."
Dad looked at me.
That familiar silent request passed between us.
Please make this easy.
I hated that request because somehow I was always the person expected to fulfill it.
I grabbed my jacket.
"Fine."
When I returned that evening, the bedroom windows were open despite the cold.
My bedspread had been changed.
The garment bag beneath my bed sat at a slightly different angle.
I knelt.
My fingers rested on the zipper.
I opened it.
Nothing obvious was wrong.
Still, a prickling sensation moved across the back of my neck.
I took out the dress and examined it carefully.
No tears.
No stains.
No missing pieces.
Mom's stitching remained exactly where it should.
I told myself again that grief had made me suspicious.
But later that night, while searching for my phone charger, I noticed something under my desk.
A tiny piece of pale blue thread.
The same shade as the dress.
I picked it up.
There were reasonable explanations.
I had tried the dress on recently.
A thread could have fallen then.
Yet the last time I'd worn it, I had changed beside the closet, nowhere near the desk.
I put the thread inside the top drawer of my nightstand.
Over the next few weeks, Shirley asked strange questions.
Where had Mom purchased the fabric?
Had she used a commercial pattern?
Was the bodice lined?
Did the skirt have one layer or two?
At first, she slipped the questions into ordinary conversation.
Eventually I stopped answering.
"Why do you care?"
She laughed.
"I used to watch your mother sew."
"That's not what I asked."
"You're so suspicious."
"You keep giving me reasons."
She walked away.
Prom drew closer.
Gary and I planned to meet at my house at seven.
Dad promised photographs.
For once, Shirley said very little.
That worried me more than her questions had.
The afternoon before prom, I came home early because our final class had been canceled.
A car I didn't recognize was parked near the end of our driveway.
As I approached the house, a woman stepped outside carrying a long black garment bag.
Shirley followed her.
They froze when they saw me.
The woman recovered first.
"Thank you," she told Shirley.
Shirley gave a thin smile.
"Of course."
I looked at the garment bag.
"What is that?"
Shirley stepped between us.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
The woman hurried toward her car.
I noticed a measuring tape protruding from her handbag.
My stomach tightened.
"Who was she?"
"A friend."
"Who sews?"
Shirley's expression changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
"People are allowed to have hobbies."
"What was in the bag?"
"Something of mine."
"What?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"You're not entitled to inspect everything I own."
Then she walked inside.
I stood in the driveway listening to the unfamiliar car disappear.
For several seconds, I considered following Shirley.
Instead I went directly to my room.
I pulled out Mom's dress.
Everything appeared normal.
But now I noticed faint pinpricks in the lining near the waist.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
The kind of marks that could be left by someone measuring construction details.
I touched them with my thumb.
A cold thought entered my mind.
No.
Even Shirley wouldn't do that.
Whatever had been inside the other woman's garment bag couldn't have anything to do with Mom's dress.
I forced myself to believe that.
Prom was less than twenty-four hours away.
And I was about to discover how badly I had underestimated her.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: I Walked Into Prom Wearing My Mother’s Last Gift—Then the Chaperone Doors Opened and I Saw the Impossible
Eight Days Before My Mother Died, She Finished the Dress She Knew She Would Never See Me Wear
Part 3 of 10
