“Then don’t go for them.”
“For who?”
“For the girl who used to spin in front of the oven door because she liked seeing her reflection in it.”
My throat tightened.
“I don’t remember her.”
“I do.”
That was the worst thing about my mother.
She remembered everything.
The parts I had buried.
The parts I had burned.
The parts I had not known how to grieve.
A week later, she took me to a little dress shop forty minutes away, because shopping in our own town meant people recognizing me and saying things like, “Oh, Mara, look at you,” in voices so soft they might as well have been bandages.
The dress was dark blue, almost midnight, with thin straps and tiny silver beads scattered across the bodice like stars. It was the first dress I tried on. I hated that I loved it.
My mother stood behind me in the fitting room mirror.
She didn’t touch my scars.
She never did unless I asked.
But she touched my hair.
“Oh,” she whispered.
I swallowed hard.
“What?”
She smiled, and her eyes filled.
“You look like the sky after the worst storm has finally moved on.”
