My stepmother bought me the worst dress she could find to embarrass me at the prom – but before the night was over, she was crying and begging me to take it off.
“I want both girls to have pretty dresses,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “Alexis, take this and choose something for each of them.”
He counted the bills slowly and slid across the table. Alexis covered his hand with hers and squeezed.
“Of course, Mark. I’ll find something perfect for both of them.”
She looked at me when she said that, and for the first time smiled at me as if I were her daughter.
It was something so small, but I felt a spark of emotion, the kind I should have known I couldn’t trust.
“Thank you, Alexis,” I said.
“Of course, dear,” she said casually.
I went to bed that night thinking that Alexis was finally trying.
I was almost asleep when I heard something… it sounded like footsteps in the attic. I listened for a moment, but then I didn’t hear anything else.
The following night, Alexis arrived home carrying two long robes over his arm.
One of the capes was slightly puffed up, suggesting a full skirt, perhaps. The other hung so loosely that it seemed empty.
“Try it, girls,” she said. “I want to see your expressions.”
The spark of hope I had carried since the previous day died the instant I unzipped the cloak of clothes in my room.
The faint smell of mothballs rose when I lifted the dress. It was a faded mustard gold, the fabric stiff and slightly faded, the cut nothing like what the girls wore that year.
Brianna had already torn hers up on the other side of the hallway, screaming with joy.
“Mom, it’s perfect! Oh my God, look at it!”
I heard the rustle of the expensive fabric, then her footsteps echoing toward my room.
She stopped at my door, wearing a long, ice-blue dress that shimmered in the light. The bodice was embroidered. The skirt flowed like water.
Brianna looked at my dress and burst out laughing.
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Mom, you need to see this.”
