we returned home, I carried Nora upstairs.
She was sleepy, resting against my shoulder.
The sage-green dress lay across our bed where I’d left it that morning.
I looked at it for a long moment.
I’d considered giving it to Tara.
But then I’d remembered the photographs at the lake.
The afternoon when Elaine held my coat.
The moment I’d looked at myself and felt beautiful again.
That dress was more than a piece of maternity clothing.
It reminded me that I had the right to decide what mattered to
