Laurent.
“You asked who made my dress.
Would you come here for a moment?
There’s something I’d like you to see.”
Mrs.
Laurent rose, curious.
Chloe sat on the edge of the stage, lifted the front of her skirt, and turned over the inside of the hem.
“Would you read that out loud, please?” she asked.
“Your eyes are probably better than mine.
I’ve been crying all day.”
Mrs.
Laurent put on her glasses and bent closer.
In the sudden quiet, she read the pale blue words aloud: “For Chloe, from your Aunt Ruthie, with all my love.”
Nobody moved.
Then Chloe took the microphone.
“My aunt Ruth made this dress.
She worked above a dry cleaner’s shop after work for eleven months.
She paid for the lace herself.
She’s been teaching me to sew since I was five, and she’s sitting at table 19 by the kitchen door.”
Her voice broke.
“Aunt Ruthie, would you please come up here?”
I don’t remember standing, only crossing the room in my plain blue dress and thinking my mother would have told me to stand up straight.
Chloe hugged me so hard that one of the pins in her gown popped loose.
Mrs.
Laurent took my hand, looked at the little needle scars on my fingers, and said, “Thirty years in this business, and I’ve never seen better handwork.”
“Where’s your shop?” she asked.
“Above Kim’s dry cleaning,” I answered.
She smiled.
“Not for long.”
Then I noticed Paul had stood up at the family table.
He wasn’t shouting.
He was looking at Diane with the expression of a man slowly working through a very difficult sum.
“Diane,” he said, quietly but clearly enough for the nearby guests to hear, “I wrote you a check for twelve thousand dollars.”
My sister went the color of the tablecloth.