The Dress

One day last week I took Sarah to buy some fabric to make a dress for homecoming. On the way back home, I asked her if she remembered the dress I had found in my mother's closet, when I went through things after she died. It is pink, with a satin bodice and detached lining, and an organza skirt, ornamented with small bows of pink satin ribbon. There is a pleated ruffle around the neckline and shirring in the front of the bodice. I could find no manufacturer's tag; perhaps it was made by a seamstress rather than being purchased at a store.



I've wondered about this dress ever since I found it in a box on a top shelf in my mother's closet. A bride's maid dress, perhaps, from the 1930s? But no one had any money during the 1930s and it doesn't seem too likely that anyone my parents knew would have had a wedding with bridesmaids -- my mother got married in a dark red suit at her parents' house. But the dress is very long, definitely too long for my mother to have worn it. If it was hers, she never wore it, and if it wasn't hers, why did she have it on the top shelf of her closet? Was it a gift that was treasured, even though she never wore it, or purchased for a special occasion that never happened, so the dress was never hemmed?

Sarah said she remembered me showing her the dress. I told her I couldn't figure it out, since it was too long for my mother to have worn it. We both mulled it over for a moment, and then Sarah said it was a mystery dress.

I had thought about donating it to the theater department at the kids' school, but I haven't. Now it hangs in my closet, on a purple plastic hanger and covered with a plastic bag from Macy's that isn't quite long enough. If at some point in the future one of my daughters has to clean out my closet, presumably they will remember where it came from. If not, they'll be puzzled; it's too long for me, too.