My daughter wore a prom dress she made from her late father’s police uniform. When a girl poured punch all over it, she just stood there, trying to clean his badge. Then the girl’s mother took the mic… and exposed something no one saw coming.
“I don’t need to go to prom,” Wren said.
We were standing in the school hallway after parent-night check-in. Wren had wandered half a step ahead of me, then she stopped near the flyer for prom.
“A Night Under the Stars,” it said in gold lettering. The borders were decorated with glitter.
“It’s all fake, anyway,” she added.
She gave a small shrug and kept walking.
But that night, long after I heard her bedroom door click shut, I went out to the garage looking for the extra paper towels and found her standing completely still in front of a storage closet.
“I don’t need to go to prom.”
A garment bag hung from the open door.
