“Which one?”
She hesitated, then turned the laptop toward me. It was a floor-length dress in this deep sunset shade, somewhere between orange and rose gold. Soft silk. Simple neckline. Elegant without trying too hard.
“It is beautiful,” I said.
I didn’t want her to lose prom, too.
“It is also five hundred dollars.”
“I am not going,” she said. “I do not want to be there without Dad. And we do not have money for something like that anyway.”
That part was true. His treatment took everything. Savings. Credit. Plans. Comfort. By the time we buried him, I felt like life had not just taken my husband. It had sent me the bill too.
But I couldn’t stand the thought of Lisa losing one more thing.
She had already lost her father. Her easy smile. Her last carefree year of high school. I didn’t want her to lose prom, too.
Twenty-two inches of thick blonde hair I hadn’t cut short in years.
