Chapter 24 - The Blue Dress
On our twentieth wedding anniversary, Wyatt gave me a box.
“If this is jewelry, I’m judging you.”
“It isn’t.”
“If it’s another kitchen appliance, I’m divorcing you.”
“Open it.”
Inside was fabric.
Blue.
I stopped smiling.
For one terrible second, I thought of the dress from the attack.
Police had eventually returned it after the trials.
I never opened the evidence bag.
I donated it years later to a law-enforcement training program with identifying details removed.
“What is this?”
Wyatt lifted the fabric.
A new dress.
Same shade.
Different design.
Simple.
Beautiful.
“I saw it and thought of you.”
My eyes filled.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“You don’t have to wear it.”
I touched the fabric.
For years, blue belonged to three versions of my life.
Grandpa’s nickname.
The dress I bled in.
Code Blue.
An accident waiting to happen.
Then Project Bluebird reclaimed some of it.
Still, I had rarely worn that particular shade.
“I’ll wear it.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
That evening we had dinner at Ruth House.
Not because it was romantic.
Because their anniversary fundraiser happened to be the same weekend.
Wyatt complained.
“I proposed a private dinner.”
“You married someone with a foundation.”
“I see my error.”
Evie, now nineteen, rolled her eyes.
“Dad.”
Melanie laughed.
Nora was gone by then.
Samuel too.
The older generation gradually disappeared.
Their absences hurt.
But their fingerprints remained everywhere.
Not literal fingerprints like Mom’s on Grandma’s broken watch.
Better ones.
Policies.
Buildings.
Habits.
Questions.
At dinner, Evie stood to make an announcement.
“I got into Stanford.”
I screamed.
Wyatt stood.
Melanie cried.
Evie laughed.
Then she added:
“For economics.”
I pointed at Grandpa’s photograph.
“This is his fault.”
She smiled.
“I want to work on financial-abuse prevention.”
That silenced me.
“Purplebird,” Wyatt whispered.
Evie rolled her eyes.
“No one at college is calling me that.”
“We’ll see.”
Later, I stood outside beneath string lights.
Wyatt joined me.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He looked at my blue dress.
“You know, the first time I saw you in that color—”
“Don’t.”
“I was going to say you looked beautiful.”
“You can say that.”
“You looked beautiful.”
“Good recovery.”
He touched the scar at my temple.
Barely visible now.
“Do you ever think about that porch?”
“Sometimes.”
“Me too.”
“What do you remember most?”
He took a moment.
“Catching you.”
I had expected the brick.
Mom laughing.
Dad shouting.
Instead:
Catching you.
“What do you remember?”
I thought.
For years, I remembered falling.
Then Grandpa behind the glass.
Then the ambulance.
Now?
“The electrician.”
Wyatt laughed.
“Romantic.”
“No.”
I smiled.
“I remember him saying, ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’”
“That’s what you remember?”
“Yes.”
Because that was the moment the secret stopped belonging to my parents.
Someone outside the family entered the story.
Someone refused their rules.
The walls cracked.
Witnesses appeared.
Truth became public.
The whole empire of fear began collapsing because one man said he was calling for help.
Wyatt held out his hand.
“Dance?”
“There’s no music.”
“Your grandmother danced without rhythm.”
“Good point.”
We danced anyway.
Badly.
Under lights outside a building named for the woman whose death my mother tried to hide.
Beside a residence where people who had been controlled could sleep behind doors they themselves locked.
I wore blue.
Not because I had forgotten.
May you like
Because I remembered.
And the color belonged to me again.
