Chapter 17
Emma stopped wearing the repaired dress when she was six.
Not because the stripe bothered her.
Because the dress stopped fitting.
Sophia found her trying to pull it over her shoulders anyway.
“Emma.”
“It fits.”
“It absolutely does not.”
Emma twisted.
The seam strained.
Sophia caught the fabric.
“Stop.”
Emma froze.
Not frightened.
Just annoyed.
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to tear it.”
“It already tore.”
Sophia became still.
Emma pointed toward the repaired band.
“That one.”
“Yes.”
“Then fix again.”
The logic was difficult to argue with.
Bellweather Atelier still existed.
The same seamstress did not.
Sophia considered having the dress altered.
Raffaele offered to commission another one.
Emma refused.
“I want this.”
Again.
Sophia looked at the hem.
Too short.
Waist tight.
Shoulders wrong.
The dress had survived Bianca.
It had survived pasta sauce.
Museum stairs.
Preschool.
Growth was finally doing what violence had not.
Making it unusable.
Emma did not understand why Sophia looked sad.
“It’s dress.”
“Yes.”
“You said clothes get small.”
“Yes.”
“Then why face?”
Apparently Raffaele’s face had become genetic.
Sophia sat beside her.
“I remember when it got damaged.”
Emma thought.
“Scissors?”
“Yes.”
She remembered pieces.
Not the whole wedding.
Not Gregory.
Not money.
Mostly Bianca’s angry face.
Her mother being pushed.
Grandpa lifting her afterward.
The stripe.
“Do you want keep it?” Sophia asked.
Emma nodded.
“Can’t wear.”
“No.”
“Still mine.”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
They folded it.
Not into an evidence box.
Not into the Carbone archive.
Into a plastic storage container beneath Emma’s bed.
Beside old shoes.
A stuffed rabbit missing one ear.
Two preschool paintings.
Nothing ceremonial.
Months later Emma needed a costume for a school play.
She was assigned a village child.
Sophia ordered a simple dress.
Emma hated it.
“Looks cheap.”
The word stopped Sophia.
Emma noticed.
“What?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Ella said costumes cheap.”
Sophia sat.
The answer had arrived sooner than expected.
Not because of Bianca.
Just school.
Language moving normally through children.
“What does cheap mean?”
Emma shrugged.
“Not much money.”
“That’s one meaning.”
“Bad?”
“Sometimes people use it that way.”
Emma thought.
“Bianca did.”
Sophia looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Was dress cheap?”
“No.”
“But if was?”
Sophia became quiet.
That was the more important question.
“If it had been inexpensive, what Bianca did would still have been wrong.”
Emma frowned.
“Why?”
“Because the price of your dress had nothing to do with whether you deserved respect.”
Emma considered.
Then:
“So cheap dress okay.”
“Yes.”
“Ugly dress?”
Sophia looked at the school costume.
“Apparently.”
Emma laughed.
She wore it.
The play was terrible.
Raffaele attended both performances.
He denied sleeping during the second.
Emma caught him.
Again.
The repaired Bellweather dress stayed under her bed.
Not because she needed it every day.
Because she had decided she wanted to keep it.
May you like
For now.
That was enough.
