Sob Story

I remember despising dresses. Despite popular belief though, my revulsion did not stem from the view that dresses were dainty or feminine. No, you see my disgust in dresses came from what they stood for; things such as social dinner parties, religious Sunday mornings, and worse weddings. At the time, the presence of dresses only meant one thing; misfortune was waiting to strike. I knew this to be a fact because the morning we received the phone call I was wearing a dress. A summer dress to be precise and as my mother’s shouts rang through the house announcing my grandfather’s death I remember thinking that she must have heard them wrong. Even as everyone ran out the house and drove off, I stood there by the door and refused to believe that the same man, who had sat me on his lap only the weekend before, was gone. The next week was a blur but what I do know was that even in the middle of summer Texas heat the evening of the burial was cold. So cold, in fact that the women from the church dressed me and my sisters in our black winter Christmas dresses. Horrid dresses that chafed with every twist or turn. That same day we laid my grandpa in the ground was the same day I buried all traces of dependence on any person other than myself. Or so I had thought. However, the summer before my seventh grade year after coming home from my vacation at my grandmas’ my mother had exceptional news. I was sitting in the back of my mom’s car not but five minutes from the airport when my mom blurted out her decision in getting married. Not much to my surprise, on that day I was wearing a flared dress with hot air balloons on it. My thought process, limited to only two things was one, what had happened over the summer and two, did I even know the guy. “Hilario Rangel, that’s his name he goes to our same church. Don’t worry he’s nice.” Upon meeting him, I realized there were loads of things that my mom forgot to mention. Such as, he was nine years her junior and could only speak