“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.
Her father’s police uniform.
She didn’t hear me come in. She was staring at the zipper with her hands hovering near it, not touching.
Then she whispered, so softly I almost thought I imagined it, “What if he could still take me?”
I stood there for another second before I said, “Wren.”
She jumped and spun around.
Her father’s police uniform.
“I wasn’t—” she started.
“It’s okay.”
She looked back at the garment bag. “I had a crazy idea… I mean, I don’t want to go to prom, so it’s fine if you say no, but… but if I did go… I’d want him with me. And I thought, maybe, if I used his uniform…”
Wren had spent years pretending not to want what other girls wanted. Birthday parties, team trips, and father-daughter events at school.
She had turned disappointment into a personality so early that it scared me sometimes.
“I had a crazy idea.”
I stepped closer. “Open it. Let’s see what you have to work with.”
She looked at me. “What?”
“The bag. Open it.”
She took a breath, reached for the zipper, and pulled it down.
The uniform was neatly pressed, still clean. I put my arm around her shoulders and stared at it silently.
Wren touched the sleeve with two fingers.
“Well? Do you think it could work?”
“Open it. Let’s see what you have to work with.”
My late husband’s mother had taught Wren to sew when she was young. Wren still had her old sewing machine, and occasionally begged me for fabric to make her own clothes.
“It’s cheaper than buying what’s fashionable at the store,” she’d say.
Wren’s brow furrowed as her hands moved across the uniform.
“I can turn this into a prom dress.” She looked at me. “But Mom, are you really okay with that?”
Honestly, part of me wasn’t. Being a police officer had meant everything to Matt, and his uniform was a reminder that he’d died doing a job that he believed in.
But my daughter was here; she needed this, and I knew that whatever she made out of Matt’s uniform would be beautiful.
“I can turn this into a prom dress.”
“Of course, I’m okay with you honoring your father.” I pulled her into a hug. “I can’t wait to see what you make.”
***
For the next two months, our house turned into a workshop.
The dining room table disappeared under fabric she bought to match the uniform, where she needed extra pieces. The sewing machine came down from the hall closet. Thread rolled under chairs. Pins ended up in impossible places.
The badge stayed in its velvet box on the mantle for almost the entire project. It wasn’t his real one. That had gone back to the department after the funeral. This one was far more special
