The Lavender Dress Went to the Party

The dance

When we came out of the coat room, the party had started again, the way parties do. People had decided not to know what they had seen. The band was playing something by George Strait and a few couples were on the floor. Patty was standing near the head table with her arms folded, watching the hallway.

Dennis went to her first. He said something in her ear. I saw her face change. I saw her look at him, and then at Mom, and then she took his hand and held it with both of hers. She did not let go. Whatever else was coming for them, she did not let go.

Then he walked over to the band. The song ended. The bandleader, a young fellow with a beard, leaned into the microphone. “We’ve got a special request,” he said. “This one’s for the birthday boy and his mother.”

The first notes of the song came over the speakers, slow, and the room went quiet again, but a different kind of quiet this time.

Dennis came across the floor to our table. He held out his hand. “Mom,” he said. “Would you?”

Mom looked at me. I don’t know what she saw on my face. I was crying by then and I didn’t even care.

She took his hand. He helped her up, very carefully, one hand under her elbow, the way you would help someone made of glass.

And he walked her out to the middle of the floor in that lavender dress with the pearl brooch, and he put one hand on her back, and she put her hand on his shoulder, and they danced.

It was not much of a dance. Mom’s hip does not let her do much more than sway. Dennis is not a dancer and never was. They just stood there in the middle of the floor and moved a little side to side.

But she put her head against his chest. Right against his chest, over his heart, the way a mother does with a little boy who has had a nightmare. And I watched my brother close his eyes and rest his chin on the top of her white head.

All around the room, people were wiping their eyes. Ron Pfeiffer, that big loud man, was standing by the bar with his napkin pressed to his face.

Amy came and stood next to me by our table. She put her arm around my waist. “Is that the dress?” she whispered. “Is that really the dress Grandma’s going to be buried in?”

“That’s the dress,” I said.

“Well,” my daughter said. “It’s a good dress for dancing.”

When the song ended, Dennis kissed Mom on the forehead. Somebody started clapping, and then the whole room was on its feet. Mom gave a little wave, like she was on the parade float again, and Dennis walked her back to our table.

“I think,” she said, sitting down, “that I would like a piece of that cake.”