Three hours before my daughter Emily’s senior prom, my niece Chloe walked into our kitchen holding a glass of cranberry juice.
Emily was standing beside the island in her dress, a deep green silk gown we had bought from a small bridal boutique in Boston.
It had cost $1,200. Since Emily was barely five-foot-two, it had taken six weeks and three fittings to alter.
She had saved half the money herself through weekend shifts at a bookstore. I paid the rest.
Chloe looked at her, smiled, and said, “Wow. You really went all out.”
Then she tilted the glass.
She didn’t bump into Emily. She didn’t stumble. She tilted it on purpose.
Red juice spread across the front of the gown like paint.
For a moment, no one moved.
Emily made a sound I had never heard from her before, half gasp and half sob, then pulled the skirt away from her body. I stared at Chloe.
She was seventeen. She was old enough to know exactly what she had done.
My sister Vanessa was sitting at the breakfast table.
And she laughed.
“Oh my God,” she said, covering her mouth even though she was still smiling. “Rachel, don’t look like that. It’s just a dress. Buy another one.”
“Prom is in three hours,” I said.
Vanessa shrugged. “Then go to the mall.”
Emily ran upstairs crying.
