What We Called Therapy After Dark novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Champagne Dress

My mother held the fitting on Friday, in the dining room, with the good light.

She had cleared the table and laid out her pin cushion, her tape measure and one garment bag.

"Stand on the chair," she said. "It's the only way to get the hem."

I climbed up in my slip.

She unzipped the bag, and a long dress slid out, the colour of old champagne.

It had a low back and thin straps, and a seam that ran from hip to knee.

I knew it at once.

It was the dress in the window of the shop on Main Street that I had stopped in front of in May.

I had told her I couldn't afford it.

"I bought it for you," she said. "You deserve something beautiful at your own mother's party."

"It's lovely."

I meant it, and I hated that I did.

She lifted it over my head, and the silk poured down over my skin.

Pins went in at my waist, one at a time, cold against my ribs.

I thought of Mitch's thumb on my collarbone in Dr. Keene's office, and my skin remembered it.

I held still.

"Do you know what I like about you?" my mother said, through a mouthful of pins. "You adapt. When your father died, you cried for one week and then you packed your own lunch."

"I was ten."

"You were wonderful." She sat back on her heels and looked up at me. "I'm saying this because I want you to hear it. I love you. I have never lied about that."

"You photographed me in bed with my stepfather."

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