PART 2
Caleb stood beneath the stage lights with one hand wrapped around the microphone.
For a few seconds, he said nothing.
He simply looked across the ballroom.
The music had stopped. Hundreds of students stared back at him. Teachers stood along the walls. Even the photographer near the entrance had lowered his camera.
I remained beside the doors, frozen.
My hand still tingled where Caleb had grabbed it.
Across the room, Madison and her friends—the girls who had spent the last five minutes tearing apart the last thing my grandfather had ever made—watched Caleb expectantly.
Madison even smiled.
She probably thought he was about to make a joke.
Caleb looked directly at her.
“I heard what some of you were saying about Nora’s dress.”
Madison’s smile disappeared.
A murmur moved through the room.
Caleb continued.
“You called it cheap.”
Silence.
“You called it ugly.”
His eyes moved toward Madison’s friends.
“And somebody called it a rag.”
One girl immediately stared at the floor.
My stomach tightened.
I didn’t want this.
I didn’t want hundreds of people looking at me.
I didn’t want pity.
I just wanted Grandpa.
I reached for the door.
Then Caleb said something that stopped me.
“Do any of you know who made that dress?”
Nobody answered.
Caleb looked toward me.
“Her grandfather did.”
A few whispers rippled through the ballroom.
“He worked two jobs,” Caleb continued. “And after working all day, he spent his nights learning how to sew that dress because he couldn’t afford to buy Nora one.”
My throat closed.
How did he know that?
I hadn’t told Caleb.
I’d barely told anyone.
“He measured fabric when Nora was asleep. He redid the sleeves three times because he didn’t think they looked right. And apparently, the first zipper he put in was so crooked he ripped the entire back seam apart and started over.”
A few people laughed softly.
Not cruelly.
Warmly.
Exactly the way Grandpa had laughed when he’d shown me that crooked zipper afterward.
My breath caught.
There was no possible way Caleb could know that.
I stared at him.
He continued.
“He finished the dress five days before he died.”
The ballroom became completely silent.
Someone near the dance floor whispered, “Oh my God.”
Madison’s face went pale.
Caleb’s voice softened.
“So tonight, when you were laughing at Nora, you weren’t laughing at something she bought because she couldn’t afford something better.”
He paused.
“You were laughing at the final gift a grandfather made for the girl he raised.”
Nobody moved.
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
I pushed through the doors.
“Nora!”
I heard Caleb call after me.
But I kept walking.
I made it halfway down the hallway before he caught up.
“Nora, wait.”
I spun around.
“How did you know?”
He stopped.
“What?”
“The zipper.”
His face changed.
“You said he redid the zipper. You said he worked on it while I was asleep.”
Caleb looked toward the ballroom doors.
Then back at me.
“How do you know those things?”
For the first time since I’d known him, Caleb looked nervous.
Not embarrassed.
Scared.
“Nora, there’s something I need to show you.”
“What?”
“Not here.”
My grief turned instantly into anger.
“You just announced my grandfather’s death to the entire senior class.”
“I know.”
“You told them things I never told you.”
“I know.”
“So tell me how you know.”
He hesitated.
Then reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.
He pulled out a folded piece of paper.
My anger vanished.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Grandpa’s.
My knees almost buckled.
“Where did you get that?”
Caleb held it carefully.
“Your grandfather gave it to me.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“Nora—”
“He didn’t even know you.”
“Yes, he did.”
I stared at him.
Caleb unfolded the letter.
“About six weeks ago, I started working evenings at Miller’s Hardware.”
I remembered Grandpa mentioning a new kid at work.
He’d called him “that basketball boy.”
I hadn’t cared enough to ask who he meant.
“Your grandpa figured out pretty quickly that we went to the same school,” Caleb said.
Despite everything, I could almost hear Grandpa’s voice.
You’re that basketball boy, aren’t you?
Caleb continued.
“He talked about you constantly.”
My eyes burned.
“What did he say?”
Caleb smiled.
“That you were stubborn.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
“That sounds like him.”
“He said you pretended not to care what people thought, but you cared more than you admitted.”
That sounded like him too.
“He told me about the dress because he kept coming into work exhausted. One night I asked him why he was barely awake.”
Caleb looked down at the letter.
“He told me he was learning to sew.”
I closed my eyes.
“He made me promise not to tell you.”
“Then why did he give you a letter?”
“He didn’t give it to me at first.”
Caleb swallowed.
“The day before he died, he came into work even though he wasn’t scheduled. He handed me this envelope.”
My heart began pounding.
“He said, ‘If anything happens to me before prom, make sure Nora gets this.’”
My eyes snapped open.
“What?”
“I thought he was being dramatic. I told him he’d be fine.”
Caleb’s voice cracked slightly.
“He just smiled and said, ‘Everybody thinks they have more time.’”
That sounded so much like Grandpa that my legs nearly gave out.
Caleb reached for my arm.
I pulled away.
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
His face tightened.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The funeral.”
I remembered seeing Caleb there.
At the back of the church.
I’d assumed he’d come with classmates.
“I couldn’t do it,” he admitted. “You were standing beside the coffin, and everyone kept hugging you, and you looked like you could barely breathe.”
“So you kept it?”
“He told me something else.”
“What?”
Caleb looked at the letter again.
“He said not to give it to you until you wore the dress.”
I stared at him.
“What exactly did he write?”
Caleb held out the letter.
My hands shook as I took it.
The paper smelled faintly like sawdust and machine oil.
Grandpa.
I unfolded it.
Sweetheart,
If you’re reading this, then either Caleb followed instructions or I have come back from the grave to annoy you personally.
I laughed through my tears.
Of course.
Of course that was how he’d begin.
I kept reading.
I know you.
If I’m gone, you’ll want to hide.
You’ll tell yourself you don’t care about dances or photographs or pretty dresses anymore.
But grief doesn’t get to steal everything.
So wear the dress.
Not because it’s perfect. Lord knows it isn’t. That left sleeve nearly killed me.
I touched the sleeve.
My vision blurred.
You spent too many years believing that expensive things are worth more.
They aren’t.
Price and value are different things.
Anybody can buy something expensive.
Love costs time.
And time is the one thing nobody gets back.
By then, tears were falling onto the page.
But there was more.
And sweetheart, if anybody laughs at that dress, don’t waste your anger on them.
They simply haven’t learned yet.
One day they will.
I hope life teaches them gently.
I couldn’t continue.
I lowered the letter.
Caleb stood silently in front of me.
“He knew,” I whispered.
“Knew what?”
“That people might laugh.”
Caleb nodded.
“He worried about you.”
I looked toward the ballroom.
“I can’t go back in there.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t want their pity.”
“Then don’t take their pity.”
I frowned.
Caleb extended his hand.
“Take my dance instead.”
I stared at it.
“You’re serious?”
“Completely.”
“You don’t even like me.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Then maybe don’t invent my opinions for me.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
He smiled back.
Then the ballroom doors opened.
Madison stepped into the hallway.
Her face was red.
Behind her stood two of her friends.
“Nora.”
I immediately stiffened.
She walked toward me.
For years, Madison had treated cruelty like entertainment.
She’d laughed at my thrift-store shoes.
My old backpack.
My lunch.
Once, sophomore year, she’d asked loudly whether my sweater had survived the Great Depression.
I’d hated her ever since.
Now she couldn’t meet my eyes.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
I said nothing.
“If I’d known about your grandfather…”
I folded his letter carefully.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“You wouldn’t have laughed?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
“Would the dress have looked different if you’d known?”
“No.”
“Would it suddenly stop being homemade?”
“No.”
“Then why does knowing he died change anything?”
Madison’s eyes filled with tears.
Her friends looked uncomfortable.
I didn’t feel triumphant.
I just felt tired.
“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me,” I said.
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
She swallowed.
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