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A dress form in my size sat in the back of a closet, and I wheeled it out
then slid the gown onto it. The fabric fell like liquid, fitting over the curves
without a drag line or pucker, dropping into impossibly even flares below
the waist.
It was perfect, and yet, decades after he’d mastered fit, he hadn’t done
much more.
From the couch, I stared at it.
What would I have done differently?
Embroidery? Beads? Applique?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
What do you add to something perfect yet uninteresting?
The answer was nothing. Perfection was an end in itself. It existed
silently in a world where the traces of burn on my bottom were reminders
of damage, wounds, brokenness. The raw sting of Logan’s hand on my ass
celebrated imperfection. It was ours alone and needed nothing more.
Rifling my supply drawers, I found Daddy’s tailor shears. I kept the teninch
blades razor-sharp, and clapped them open and closed, asking myself if
I was really going to do this.
I slid a blade under the shoulder strap.
His work was squirrelled away for museums and historians. This gown
was the only one of its kind, and the only one of his I’d ever have.
I snapped the scissors closed. The strap fell.
“Where were you?” Logan demanded, sitting on the back patio with
Colton, tie undone and shirtsleeves rolled up.
I never got home after him, and I always answered his calls. But I’d
shut off the phone, and time had gotten away from me. I got back to the
house past ten after a drive home that was interrupted by frequent
sketchbook stops.
“Studio,” I said, throwing myself in a chair. “I did a thing.”
“What thing?” Colton tossed me a beer.
I caught it, noticing the roll in his cuffs, where it fell on his ankles, the
proportion to the width of the knee. “I don’t know yet. Or long story. Both.”