She wouldn’t let me pay for gas.

We stopped at the Cenex in Salem on the way out of town. I tried to hand her a twenty. She pushed it back across the console.

“I don’t need gas money,” she said. “I’ve got a full tank and nowhere I’d rather be.”

Sadie sat in the back seat with her earbuds in. She was quiet. She’d been quiet all week. She went to school and came home and did her homework and went upstairs.

She hadn’t said one word about the dress. Or the picture. Or her dad.

It was forty minutes to Sioux Falls on Interstate 90. Flat brown fields on both sides, still patched with snow. Grain bins. Feedlots. A red barn every couple of miles.

Darla drove the speed limit exactly. Seventy-five. She had both hands on the wheel at ten and two, the way they taught you in 1969.

Around Hartford, Sadie took out one earbud.

“Grandma,” she said. “Where are we going for lunch?”

“Sioux Falls,” Darla said.

“That’s kind of far for lunch.”

“We’ve got some shopping to do first,” Darla said.

Sadie went very still in the back seat.

Darla took the Phillips Avenue exit. Downtown. She parked on the street, right in front.

Boutique 605.

A narrow brick storefront with big glass windows. Dresses in the windows on mannequins. Prom season. Every color.

Sadie stared out the car window at it.

“Grandma,” she said. Her voice was small. “No.”

“Get out of the car, honey,” Darla said.

“Grandma, I can’t. Dad said…”

“I know what your dad said,” Darla said. “Get out of the car.”

The shop had racks of gowns and bright daylight pouring through the front window.

That’s what I remember most. The light. It came through those big front windows and lit up every dress on every rack. Sequins and satin and chiffon and tulle. Pink and blue and black and red and silver. All of them glowing.

A young woman with a name tag that said BRITT came over. She was maybe twenty-five, in a black dress, with her hair in a perfect bun.

“Good morning!” she said. “Are we shopping for prom?”

“We are,” Darla said. “This is my granddaughter, Sadie. She’s a senior at McCook Central. Prom’s April twentieth.”

Britt smiled at Sadie. “What colors do you like?”

Sadie didn’t answer. She was looking at a price tag on the nearest dress.

$520.

Chapter Six: Seven Dresses

Sadie tried on six.

Britt brought them to the fitting room one at a time. A blue one. A pink one. A black one with lace sleeves. A red one. A lavender one with a big skirt. A silver one with beads.

Darla sat in the chair outside the fitting room. A big upholstered chair, the kind they put out for mothers and grandmothers. She sat there with her purse in her lap.

I stood a step behind her. In my gray cardigan. With my hands in my pockets.

She checked every price tag before she checked the mirror.

That’s what broke my heart. Every single dress. She’d come out of the fitting room in it, and before she even looked at herself in the three-way mirror, she’d reach around and find the tag hanging under her arm. And read it.

$480. She’d look in the mirror. “It’s okay.”

$410. “It’s kind of itchy.”

$545. “I don’t think the color’s right.”

$395. “The straps are weird.”

She didn’t like any of them. That’s what she said. But I knew. She liked all of them. She just couldn’t stand the numbers.

Six dresses. Six price tags. Six times she said it’s okay, it’s not right, it’s itchy.

On the sixth one, the silver one with beads, she came out and checked the tag and her face went pale. $615.

“No,” she said. She was already reaching for the zipper. “Grandma, this is too much. All of these are too much. Can we just go? We can go to Target. They have dresses at Target.”

Darla stood up.

Darla finally pulled the tags off the hangers and tucked them in her purse.

She went to the rack where Britt had hung the dresses Sadie had already tried on. She took each hanger. She found each little white price tag on its string. And she tore it off. One after another. Rip. Rip. Rip.

She folded them up and put them in her purse. She snapped the purse shut.

Britt watched with her mouth slightly open. She didn’t say a word.

Then Darla walked back to the fitting room. She stood in front of her granddaughter.

“Grandma picks the numbers today,” she said. “You pick the dress.”

Sadie stared at her.

“Grandma…”

“I’ve done hair for forty-one years,” Darla said. “I’ve got a little put back. It’s mine. I can spend it on whatever I want.” She folded her arms. “And today, I want to spend it on this.”

“But Dad…”

“Your dad’s not here,” Darla said. “I am. Go try on another one. And don’t you dare look for the tag. There aren’t any.”

The seventh one was emerald green.

Britt brought it. She’d been watching. She must have seen something. Because she went to a rack in the back of the store, behind the counter, and came back with a dress over her arm that hadn’t been on the floor.

“This one just came in Thursday,” she said quietly. “I haven’t even put it out yet. I think it might be right.”

Sadie took it into the fitting room.

She was in there a long time. Longer than the others.

Darla sat back down in the big chair. She folded her hands on top of her purse.

I stood behind her.

Then the curtain opened.

Emerald green. Satin. Long, all the way to the floor. A simple neckline. Thin straps. Fitted through the waist and then falling straight down, plain and smooth, with a little bit of shine when she moved.

No sequins. No beads. No lace.

Just green. Deep, rich green. The color of a cornfield in July.

It was the color of her eyes. I’d never noticed that before. Sadie has green eyes. Rory’s eyes. Darla’s eyes.

Sadie stepped up on that little round platform in front of the three-way mirror and didn’t say a word.

She stood there. She looked at herself. Front. Side. Back.

She didn’t reach for a tag. There wasn’t one.

She just looked.

Chapter Seven: There You Are

Darla sat in the chair beside her, holding her purse, smiling.

Not saying anything. Just smiling. The way she smiles at the women in her kitchen on Friday mornings when she takes the rollers out and hands them the mirror.

I stood a step behind Darla in my gray cardigan and kept my mouth shut.

It was not my moment.

I wanted to say something. Lord, I wanted to. I wanted to say you’re beautiful, baby, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. I wanted to cry. I wanted to take a hundred pictures.

But it wasn’t my moment. I’d had a hundred moments with Sadie. I’d have a hundred more.

This one belonged to her grandmother.

“Oh, honey,” Darla said softly. “There you are.”

Sadie turned to see the back.

The dress was open in the back. Just a little. A low scoop with a thin satin strap across the middle. She looked at it over her shoulder in the mirror.

Her face changed. Just for a second. Something opened up in it. Something I hadn’t seen since before Christmas. Maybe before that.

Then she looked at the floor.

 

Click here to continue reading PART 4: My Daughter’s Father Said He Couldn’t Afford Her Prom Dress, but That Same Night He Bought His Stepdaughter a $600 Gown