Theo put an arm around me.
“He wasn’t scared all the time.”
“Thank you for not lying.”
He nodded.
“I promised him that too.”
The red dress became one of the things people remembered about Jack’s funeral.
For a while, that bothered me.
I didn’t want my son’s life reduced to some strange story people told about a boy in a dress.
But eventually, I understood why people remembered it.
The dress wasn’t really about Theo.
It wasn’t even about the joke.
It was proof that Jack had still been Jack when death was close enough for him to see.
Sarcastic. Controlling. Funny. Annoying.
Thinking six months ahead about how to make his best friend uncomfortable.
Theo gave the dress back to Emma the next day.
She refused to take it.
She told him, “Absolutely not. It has funeral energy now.”
So he kept it.
Years have passed.
Theo is 23 now.
