“I thought Jack would be furious if I didn’t keep my promise.”
For a moment, I could almost hear my son laughing.
Then I hugged Theo again.
This time, he didn’t apologize.
Theo returned the dress to his sister the following afternoon.
At least, he tried to.
Emma refused to take it.
“Absolutely not,” she told him over the phone. “That dress has funeral energy now.”
“You gave it to me!”
“I lent it to you. I didn’t agree to keep it afterward.”
“That’s not how lending works.”
“Don’t use Jack’s logic against me. It’s too early.”
Theo laughed.
In the end, he kept the dress in the back of his wardrobe.
He told me later that he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.
Neither could I.
I kept Jack’s note in the drawer beside my bed.
Every few weeks, I would take it out and read it.
The handwriting was unmistakable: messy, impatient, and slanted toward the edge of the paper.
