Chapter 2
Grandma held three dresses against me before she stopped.
The first was too small. The second still had a stain from last summer. The third was black, plain, and a little loose at the waist.
“It will work under your gown,” she said.
I looked at the pale blue fabric spread across my bed. I had imagined walking into the auditorium wearing that dress. I had pictured Dad seeing me in it for the first time.
“I know,” Grandma said softly. “It isn’t the one you wanted.”
Vanessa came back down the hall carrying a suitcase. Mia followed with the ruined bag clutched to her chest.
My bedroom door was open. Mia looked at the black dress in Grandma’s hands.
“Now she has something to wear,” she muttered. “Can we stop pretending her life is over?”
Dad stepped out of the bathroom, where he had been washing the scissors.
“Get your things downstairs, Mia.”
Vanessa set her suitcase down. “Daniel, you’ve made your point. We can talk when everyone is calm.”
“After the ceremony.”
“You cut a bag worth three times as much as her dress.”
The words hit harder than I expected. Vanessa had said “her dress” as though it were an inconvenience on a receipt.
Dad looked at her.
“I paid for neither item. I shouldn’t have cut Mia’s bag. I’ll deal with that choice. You still haven’t asked Aaliyah if she’s all right.”
Vanessa glanced at me for the first time since Dad came home. I could see her searching for something to say.
“We’ll talk later,” she said.
She took Mia downstairs.
Grandma closed my door. I changed into the black dress while she waited outside. When I opened it, she tucked the waist with two safety pins and gave me a narrow silver belt she’d brought in her overnight bag.
“That was your mother’s,” she said.
My mother died when I was eleven. Grandma kept a few things of hers at her house, and I recognized the belt from an old photograph.
“Are you sure?”
“She would have wanted you to have it.”
I fastened it with careful hands.
Dad knocked once and came in. He stopped when he saw me.
“You look beautiful.”
I wanted that to be enough. My eyes filled again.
He crossed the room and hugged me. I tried not to wrinkle the black dress.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “I want to talk about what happened, but you shouldn’t have to spend your graduation morning listening to me.”
I held on to him.
“I thought you’d believe them.”
He went still. “Why?”
“Because you usually do.”
When I pulled back, he looked as though I had struck him.
Downstairs, the front door shut. Vanessa’s car started a moment later. I counted the seconds until I heard it pull away.
Dad helped Grandma carry my gown to the car. On the drive, she sat beside me in the back while I checked my phone. My best friend, Janelle, had sent three messages asking where I was.
I told her I was on my way.
At the school entrance, graduates crowded the steps. They hugged parents, adjusted caps, and showed each other their outfits. I wanted to turn around before anyone asked about mine.
Janelle saw me first.
“You made it!” She threw her arms around me. Then she noticed my face. “What happened?”
I told her in a few words. She looked down at my dress, then back up.
“Mia did that today?”
I nodded.
Janelle took my hands. “Come inside with me.”
She didn’t tell me the black dress was better. She didn’t tell me to forget what happened. She stayed beside me while we joined our class.
During the ceremony, I searched the audience. Dad sat between Grandma and Janelle’s mother. When our principal called my name, he stood before anyone else in our row.
I nearly stumbled crossing the stage because I was looking at him.
Afterward, I posed for photographs with Grandma and Dad. Janelle joined us for one. I smiled in every picture, but when Dad asked to take one of me alone, I struggled.
“Can we do it later?” I asked.
He lowered the phone. “Of course.”
We went to lunch at the small restaurant where Mom used to take me on birthdays. Grandma had made the reservation weeks earlier.
I tried to talk about Janelle’s speech and the teacher who had cried in the front row. Dad listened, but his phone kept lighting up beside his plate.
Vanessa’s name appeared again and again.
“You can answer,” I said.
“After we eat.”
“She’ll keep calling.”
Dad turned the phone face down. “Then she’ll keep calling.”
For a few minutes, I let myself enjoy lunch.
When we got home, a florist’s van was pulling away. A huge arrangement sat on our porch with a card addressed to me from Vanessa and Mia.
Dad carried it inside. I opened the card.
Sorry things got out of hand this morning. We hope you enjoy your special day.
That was all.
There was no mention of the dress or who had cut it.
I put the card down. “I don’t want flowers from them.”
“We can move them,” Dad said.
He carried the arrangement to the laundry room. When he returned, he had another envelope in his hand.
“This was taped to the front door.”
It was from Vanessa. I watched him read it.
“What does she want?” I asked.
Dad folded the paper slowly.
“She wants the cost of Mia’s bag before she’ll discuss coming home.”
Grandma pushed back her chair. “Did she mention Aaliyah’s dress?”
Dad shook his head.
I looked at the graduation cards lined up on the mantel. Less than a day had passed, and they were already trying to turn everything into a price.
“Are they coming back?” I asked.
Dad looked at the envelope in his hand, then at me.
“I haven’t decided what our home looks like after this,” he said. “But you won’t be asked to live with someone who hurts you and calls it a joke.”
May you like
It was the first answer he had given me that day without looking away.
I wanted to believe it would still be true tomorrow.
