Twenty years after I buried an empty casket, I thought I had finally learned how to live with the questions my daughter's death left behind. Then a stranger brought something from Teresa's past back to my door, and the truth forced me to remember her in a way I never had before.
"Take it off."
The woman on my porch froze with one hand pressed against the pale blue skirt.
"I'm sorry?"
"That dress belonged to my daughter."
I gripped the doorframe as I stared at the five uneven pearls along her left shoulder.
I had sewn them back on after Teresa caught the gown on a fitting-room zipper. There wasn't another dress with that crooked repair.
"Take it off."
She reached for the clasp behind her neck.
"I can change in my car."
"No."
I didn't want her undressing on my porch or tossing the dress across a seat. I didn't know what I wanted.
***
Twenty years earlier, my 16-year-old daughter died the day before her prom.
Four years after that, I folded this dress into a donation box and whispered goodbye to the future she never had.
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