Blue Cotton Work Shirts Stitched Together for a Spring Dance
I looked at the front row, where several girls from the yearbook staff were watching me with still, wide eyes. I took a slow, deep breath, letting the smell of old wood and floor wax fill my lungs.
“My father swept these floors for twelve years,” I said, my voice sounding clear and unfamiliar through the speakers. “He knew every crack in the tile, and he knew which windows leaked when the wind came out of the north.”
I paused, letting the words settle into the high rafters of the gymnasium. I could see Clara watching from the back corner near the entrance, her hands clasped tightly in front of her wool coat.
“He wore these blue cotton shirts every single day to make sure we had a clean place to learn,” I said. “I am wearing them tonight so he could be here to see me finish.”
I looked down at the faded green panel sewn into the very center of the bodice, the fabric clean and stiff against my chest.
“He taught me that dignity is not something you buy,” I said, my voice steady. “It is something you build with your own hands, stitch by stitch.”
