I was never the screamer. I was that child teachers used to mutter about at conferences, “bright future,” they would say, as though it were a secret they did not want to jinx. That promise didn t go very far in our house, where Mom rolled groceries in crumpled singles and Grandma cut coupons like they were athletic tickets.
Dad had disappeared when I was seven–no flourishes, simply a bag under his arm and no sound in his place. It had been the three of us ever since, crammed into a house fitted out with secondhand furniture and tattered family pictures. Nevertheless, love conquered the spaces that money had occupied. Somehow, we ever did make it.
When prom rolled around I did not even ask to be taken a dress. I was too familiar with Mom face–that needle in her eye when she wished she could say yes but had to say no.
But Grandma was not the woman to allow sadness to dwell.
One afternoon she told me, with a twinkle in her eye, that you would be surprised what people threw away. Treasure hunting?
That was what she termed as thrift shopping. And it was not being poor that mattered but being clever. And brave. And occasionally fortunate.
The downtown Goodwill smelled like lost remembrance. Grandma plunged into the racks like a woman with a purpose, and her hands sliced through sequins and polyester like a blindfolded magician.
Then I caught it.
Midnight blue. Lace-trimmed. Floor-length glory that had no place sandwiched between neon bridesmaid catastrophes and ’80s ruffled catastrophes.
I whispered, “Grandma.” This is it.
We examined the label. Twelve dollars. Twelve.
“Every now and then,” she whispered, “the universe makes you a favor.
She had the dress out at home, like sacred cloth, and began hemming. When she asked me I gave her the seam ripper, but something made me look closer–a spot of stitching by the zipper, illegal in a thread that did not match.
“What’s that?” I murmured.
I pulled softly. Something crinkled. A piece of paper was folded and hidden between the outer fabric and the lining.
WHAT IN THE WORLD? Grandma bent nearer.
I opened it out. And spoke the words:
Ellie, this is the dress I sent you to prom. It is my apology to you because I left you when you were such a small girl. I lacked the financial capability and strength to bring you up at that time. I believed only giving you up at five would provide you with a better life. But today, when you are 18 years old, I would like to present you this dress and to ask you… could you forgive me? I have talked of you daily. My address is on the bottom, in case you want to see me. I love you. —Mom”
I ceased to read. The air in the room seemed to be stilled.
“It was more than a note.” I said. That was a second chance.
Ellie, who knows who she was, never read it. Somehow the dress came here–to me.
Grandma spoke in a steady voice. “Well, then we will find her.
However, the following morning the clerk at the thrift store simply shook her head. That gown is two years old. Might have belonged to anybody.
It was the weekend of prom. Grandma had put too much love in the dress to leave me not to wear it. Well, I did.
And it was good, one night.
I was drifting around in that gymnasium as though I were in a dream. The music, the lights, the heat, I felt gorgeous.
Then they called my name out.
Prom queen.
Me.
I was just standing there with my crown on my head and in this 12-dollar dress, still in shock, when my literature teacher came over.
She questioned, Cindy? “What happened to that dress?”
Downtown, I said, there is a thrift store. “Why?”
she smiled gently. It is the same as the one I had on my prom. It was sent to me unexpectedly by my mom… I never did know why.”
My heartbound. What is your first name?
“Eleanor,” said she. But I am Ellie to everybody.
I caught her hand. You must go along with me.
A few minutes later, we were in my car driving back to my house through the night. I did not say a lot. Gave her the letter a moment ago.
I saw her read it–saw it strike. The way she went through confusion to disbelief to tears that would not stop.
She returned, she muttered. It was, “She returned to me.”
She clung to me as though I were her lifeline in a storm that she had been years in.
The following day we drove six hours to the address on the note.
We were sitting in the automobile in front of a small white house, our nerves dancing in our bones.
What will I do if she is not there? Ellie asked.
Suppose she is?” I whispered.
She knocked.
The lady who replied blinked as though she was looking at a ghost.
Ellie, she said, hardly loudly.
And that was it, they fell into each others arms crying.
I was sitting in their kitchen that afternoon, and they were telling tales between cups of tea and numb shock. A life time of missing one another poured into each look, each caress.
On my way out, Ellie mom held my hands. Flattened an envelope on them.
Oh, you altered both our lives, she said.
In envelope: a 20,000 dollar check.
I endeavored to reject it. Well, I did.
But they persisted.
Ellie said, “You gave us a second chance. “Allow us to assist you in getting your first started.”
The check altered my life. food, rent, books. It gave me some time to breathe as I pursued a future that everyone told me I had.
And yet, the most that I value is not the money.
It is the remembrance of that note. Of discovering a message that was addressed to another–and was intended to be discovered.
Because, you know, sometimes, people give away more, than dresses.
And they do give away miracles,–sometimes even without knowing it.
