A Purpfe Dress anb Broken Nevers remember that purple dress-that long, lavender-purple dress. think Mother found it in our church's Dorcas room, or maybe I the community clothes box. It had an ugly, brown stain on one of the white satin sashes and a torn hem, but Mother
I
I
hemmed
hem, scrubbed out the stain, and ironed the sash. remember the day she called me into her room to try it on. In the
of my six years
Mother had
I
I
all
don't think I'd ever seen a prettier dress.
hanging up on the track of her closet door. It hung beside a dress for my sister, but it was yellow and had a wide, lacy yellow flounce over the shoulders instead of sleeves. Mother took down the purple dress and held it up to me. She it
smiled. "It's
so long
remember her
it'll
make you look
like
young
lady,"
I
saying.
into
When the dress was on and Mother had tied the ribbon a bow around my waist, I turned to face myself in the mirror.
The
skirt fell clear to the
ground— layers and
layers of frothy
purple cloth, appliqued with delicate, velvet-white flowers.
had sheer puffy sleeves and the
elastic
was
itchy around
It
my
arms.
Mommy; thank you," was all I could say. what it was for. I remembered the UPS man brought a flat, brown box one day, and inside was a pure white dress for Mommy. She tried it on for us. It was simple cotton with lace around the collar. It swished just below her knees, and she wore it with a lavender belt and white sandals. We all admired the dress, and thought it was wonderful— we'd never seen Mommy buy herself a new "It's beautiful.
I
didn't think to ask
dress before.
Mom announced to my brother and sister and me that we were going on a trip to Lake Tahoe to visit Aunt Jeanie. We were going to take Nippy with us— that was fine— we like Nippy. (That's what we called him. I don't remember why— I just remember that he made us stop calling him that after our trip to Tahoe.) Everyone was happy as we loaded into Mom's big green Dodge Aspen station wagon, but Mom seemed happiest of all. It was strange that she let Nippy drive— he never drovenot her car. He drove a little, buff-colored Honda that you could
