"We're not discussing the handbag here," he said. "Not at Naomi's graduation."
"People are asking where her dress went," Celeste whispered.
"Then tell them she wore something else. She does not owe people an explanation for being hurt."
I was close enough to see Brielle lower her eyes. An hour earlier she had seemed pleased that everyone would be talking about my ruined gown. Now, with graduates celebrating all around us, she had nothing to show off and no story that made her look good.
Grandma June invited us for lunch, but I asked to go with Tessa and a few classmates first. We had planned to visit the small riverfront park where our accessibility project had held its first fitting day. I expected Dad to object because he had arranged a family meal. Instead he asked what time I wanted him to pick me up and promised not to rush me. It was the first time I had been allowed to enjoy a celebration without managing someone else's disappointment.
We ate sandwiches on the grass, took terrible photographs, and laughed about the teachers who had threatened us with detention in freshman year. Tessa was the only person I told about the coffee. She didn't tell me to be grateful that Dad had finally defended me, and she didn't insist that I forgive my sister. She listened until I finished, then said, "I'm glad he saw it. But you shouldn't have had to wait until today to be believed."
I watched the river for a while. "I don't know what to do with the fact that I'm happy he did something and angry he waited so long."
"You can be both," she said. "Nobody gets to assign you just one feeling."
That afternoon, Grandma June made a meal at her kitchen table for me and Dad. She had left a place set for my mother too, not with a plate or glass, but with a photograph in a little wooden frame near the window. In it my mother was about my age, sitting behind a sewing machine with a crooked measuring tape hanging around her neck. When I saw the photograph, I had to sit down.
Dad placed the lavender gown, still wrapped carefully in the towel, on an empty chair. Grandma opened it slowly and examined the brown stain. She didn't tell me she could make it perfect again. She just touched the embroidered star and nodded.
"We can have someone assess the fabric," she said. "And maybe some of the marks will lift. But even if they don't, the dress is still yours. Nothing that girl did can take away the months you spent making it."
Dad stood at the counter looking at the folded gown. "I should have known what that star meant," he said.
"You did know once," Grandma answered. She wasn't unkind. "You knew when Elena was alive."