The summer Lily turned sixteen, she decided she wanted to make her own prom dress.
Not buy one. Not order one online. Not borrow one from a friend.
Make one.
She said it like it was obvious.
“I want it to look like me,” she told me at the kitchen table, sketchbook open, pencil smudges on her fingers. “Not like everyone else.”
David looked up from his coffee. “Do you know how to sew?”
Lily shrugged. “Not yet.”
Jack, now twelve and permanently unimpressed by everyone, muttered, “This is going to be a disaster.”
Lily aimed her pencil at him like a wand. “You’re going to be helpful or silent.”
Jack blinked. “I’ll be silent.”
My mother, Catherine, nearly choked on her tea from laughing.
Margaret, seated at the table too, watched Lily with a careful expression—part admiration, part nostalgia, part something like pride.
“I know someone,” Margaret said slowly.
We all turned to her.
Margaret cleared her throat. “There’s a woman I used to avoid,” she admitted. “Because she reminded me of who I was before I pretended otherwise. She runs a sewing studio downtown. She’s very good. Practical. Honest.”
Lily’s eyes lit up. “Can we go?”
Margaret nodded. “Yes,” she said. “If you want.”