She’d found it in a box in the basement. Years ago, the dress was hers, and the cotton was soft and thin from lots of washings. “Redheads are afraid of wearing red, but it can look great on them,” she told me. I put it on and she was right. I was sure she hadn’t thought about how short it would be on me, and so I had rushed out the door behind Tru, a jean jacket wrapped around my waist. Now, seated in the passenger seat of our minivan, I kept pulling at the hem, stretching it down an extra inch over my thighs. Next to me, Tru was tapping his fingers on the wheel. He was in an extraordinary mood, even happier than this morning. He wore a white T-shirt, and in the right light, the outline of his bandage was visible. As we drove to the South City Rec Center, I kept glancing over at him, looking for blood. Eventually I stopped tugging at my dress, deciding it looked just fine. I pulled down the sun visor for a second to check my makeup and was happy to see everything was still in place.
