I remembered pausing at that.
Two days later, I was sitting in the living room. The dress was on the chair across from me, and I couldn't stop staring at it.
And then a thought came to me, quiet and strange and a little bit embarrassing to admit even now.
What if Gwen could still go to prom?
Not in any real way. I knew that. But in some small way. Some gesture that was more for me than for her, maybe.
Or maybe more for her than I could understand.
What if Gwen could still go to prom?
"I know it sounds crazy," I murmured to her photograph on the mantel. "But maybe it would make you smile."
So I tried the dress on.
Don't laugh. Or do. Gwen probably would have.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in a 17-year-old's prom gown and fully expected to feel ridiculous.
And there was some of that, but there was something else too.
So I tried the dress on.
The blue fabric against my shoulders, the way the skirt moved when I turned. For just one moment, just a flash of a second, it was like she was standing right behind me in the mirror.
"Grandma," I imagined her saying. "You look better in it than I would."
I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist and made a decision that would change my life. I just didn't know it at the time.
