Chapter 9: My Mother's Dress

"Take it off," I said.

Kirsten laughed at me in the mirror.

"Excuse me?"

"That's my mother's dress. Take it off."

The seamstress froze with a pin between her lips.

The head of housekeeping had come back with fresh flowers, and she stopped in the doorway with the vase in both hands.

The stepmother set down her coffee.

"Clem, don't be dramatic. It's been in a box for twenty-six years."

"It's been in a box with her name on it."

Kirsten smoothed the silk over her hips.

"It fits me better than it would ever fit you. You've got her shoulders. Like a swimmer."

"Kirsten. Take it off, or I'll take it off you."

She turned around then, pink in the face.

"You can't touch me. You won't even be in the country in three weeks."

"I work here today."

I crossed the room.

She backed up a step, and her heel caught the hem, and the seamstress made a frightened noise.

I stopped.

I wasn't going to tear it. Not for her.

"Undo the buttons," I told the seamstress. "Please."

The seamstress looked at the stepmother.

The stepmother looked at me for a long, flat moment.

"Let her have it, Kirsten," she said finally. "It's bad luck anyway."

Kirsten's mouth opened.

"Mom."

"Her mother wore it and look what happened to her."

The room went very still.

The head of housekeeping put the vase down on the dresser without a sound.

I looked at my stepmother.

She picked up her coffee again and took a sip.

"She drove into a tree in the rain because she couldn't handle a little truth," she said. "That's not a dress I'd want my daughter married in."

My hands had gone cold to the wrist.

"She drove into a tree," I said, "because she found you in her lake house. With her husband. While she was carrying his son."

"Clem."

"You stood at her funeral in a black hat. I remember the hat."

The stepmother set the cup down hard enough to slop it.

"Get out," she said.

"Not without the dress."

The seamstress was already working down the buttons with shaking fingers.

Kirsten stood stiff as a mannequin, glaring at me over her shoulder.

When the last button was open, she stepped out of the silk and kicked it away from her bare feet onto the carpet.

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