Kendall didn’t say anything, so Dale did. Her own mother had promised to buy her prom dress, then canceled two weeks before the dance with a text and no money. Kendall had cried in her room for two nights. The boutique had been holding the dress for her for weeks. My mom heard her crying. Without telling anyone, she took the extra shifts she’d been working at the hospital and paid for the dress Kendall wanted.
She asked the boutique to tell Kendall it was a gift from her father. Dale only found out because the store called to confirm the receipt. Mom had made him promise to keep it secret, because she didn’t want Kendall to feel like she owed her anything. That was why my mom’s own gown was a secondhand find she had altered herself at our kitchen table. Dale had kept quiet for a month, but he would not stay quiet while Kendall mocked the woman who had rescued her prom.
Kendall looked down at her dress, then at my mom, and burst into tears. Her friends drifted away awkwardly. She stood up, walked straight to my mom, and apologized, not quietly, but in front of everyone who had laughed. My mom hugged her and fixed her smudged mascara with her thumb, the way she used to fix mine when I was little. Then Kendall asked my mom to take a picture with her.
That night, my mom danced every song. Teachers asked for pictures with her. When the DJ played a slow song, I danced with her first, and then Kendall asked if she could cut in. By the end of the night, my classmates had voted my mom honorary prom queen. She wore that plastic crown home, and it still sits on her dresser beside her old GED certificate. Kendall and my mom go thrift shopping together now.
