A dress that had held your body through the most important moments of your life.
You wore it the day Marco was born.
You wore it the day he graduated.
And now, because there was nothing else you could afford that felt like the truth, you were wearing it to his wedding.
The church is beautiful in a way that makes you conscious of everything you are not.
The pews glow dark and polished under soft white lights. There are arrangements of pale roses and eucalyptus tied with ivory ribbon. The women near the front are wrapped in satin and perfume, the men in tailored suits that fit like they were grown there. Their children are dressed as if they have never scraped a knee in their lives. Even the quiet sounds of the place feel expensive.
You try not to notice.
You move carefully toward a pew in the back, wanting only to witness the wedding and disappear before anyone has time to turn your presence into a pity story. But you catch fragments as you pass.
“Is that the groom’s mother?”
“She came like that?”
“That dress looks older than she is.”
