PART 1 — MY MOTHER’S LAST GIFT
My stepmother walked into my prom wearing an almost exact copy of the dress my late mother had sewn for me.
For one horrible second, people thought we had planned to match.
Shirley smiled as if she had won something.
My father looked at the floor.
I turned toward the exit, fighting tears, but my date, Gary, caught my arm.
“Don’t disappear, Delilah.”
Those words stopped me.
Because my mother had said exactly the same thing while making the dress.
A year earlier, Mom sat in bed with dusty pink fabric spread across her lap. She was already very sick, and some days her hands shook so badly she could barely hold a spoon.
Still, she insisted on sewing the tiny fabric flowers around the neckline herself.
“Mom, let me finish it,” I begged.
“No. The flowers are mine.”
She knew she probably would not live long enough to see me wear the dress to prom.
So did I.
When it was almost finished, she touched my face.
“When you wear this, promise me you won’t spend the night hiding in a corner.”
“I don’t even dance.”
“Then learn.”
I tried to laugh.
Mom smiled.
“I didn’t make this so you could disappear. Promise me.”
I promised.
Eight days later, she died.
After the funeral, our house became painfully quiet.
Dad barely spoke.
Mom’s favorite blue mug stayed on a kitchen shelf, and I touched it every morning because somehow knowing it was still there made the house feel less empty.
Then Dad married Shirley.
Shirley had been Mom’s best friend.
People acted as though that should have made things easier.
It didn’t.
Within days, Mom’s blue mug disappeared.
“It was chipped,” Shirley said.
“It wasn’t.”
Dad sighed.
“It was just a cup, Delilah.”
“It was Mom’s cup.”
Then Mom’s photograph vanished from the hallway.
Another photo was turned toward the wall.
Whenever I complained, Shirley smiled and called me overly sensitive.
One afternoon she told me, “You look exactly like your mother when you’re angry. That must be difficult for your father.”
Gradually, I began realizing she wasn’t simply removing Mom’s belongings.
She was trying to remove Mom from our house.
Then she started entering my bedroom.
I caught her once standing beside Mom’s prom dress with the garment bag partially open.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for moths.”
“In my closet?”
She glanced toward the dress.
“Your mother wouldn’t want her work destroyed.”
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
Her smile changed.
“You really do think you’re some little replacement for her, don’t you?”
I ordered her out.
That night, I told Dad what had happened.
Instead of defending me, he said Shirley was trying to help.
“She lost Kathy too.”
“She lost a friend. I lost my mother.”
Dad looked exhausted.
“I can’t do this tonight.”
That was the moment I realized I could no longer count on him to protect the things that mattered to me.
Two weeks before prom, one of Mom’s handmade flowers came loose from the neckline.
I cried harder than the damage deserved because it felt like another piece of her was disappearing.
Gary drove me to an alteration shop owned by Mrs. Howard.
When I explained that my mother had made the dress before she died, Mrs. Howard promised to be extremely careful.
Then, while examining the stitching, she suddenly became quiet.
“Has anyone else brought this dress here?”
“No.”
“Maybe photographs of it?”
My stomach tightened.
Mrs. Howard explained that a woman had come into her shop a month earlier carrying detailed photographs of a dress almost identical to mine.
She wanted an exact copy finished before prom.
Mrs. Howard had refused.
“What did she look like?” Gary asked.
“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.
