“Tall. Blonde. Around forty-five. Expensive handbag. Very impatient.”
I didn’t need to say Shirley’s name.
We all knew.
Then Mrs. Howard lifted the inside lining of Mom’s dress.
In tiny blue thread was a single letter.
K.
Kathy.
Mom had signed her work.
I touched the little blue letter and cried.
Now I knew what Shirley had been planning.
But I had no idea how cruel she intended to be.
PART 2 — THE NIGHT SHE TRIED TO ERASE MOM
Prom night arrived.
I nearly stayed home.
Instead, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror wearing Mom’s dusty pink dress.
For a moment, I saw her face in mine.
Then I touched the blue K hidden inside the lining.
“I won’t disappear, Mom.”
Downstairs, Dad looked up and froze.
“You look just like your mother.”
For one second, I thought he finally understood.
Then Shirley called from the kitchen.
“Hopefully she doesn’t spend the entire night crying like her.”
Dad flinched.
I stared at him.
“Say something.”
He barely managed, “Shirley, please.”
That was all.
When Gary arrived, he looked at me and smiled.
“You’re beautiful.”
At prom, I finally began relaxing.
Friends complimented the dress.
When I told them my mother had made it, their expressions softened.
Gary handed me a cup of punch.
“She would be proud of you.”
Then the doors opened for the parent chaperones.
I looked for Dad.
Instead, I saw Shirley.
