I Kept My Prom Dress for 55 Years, Waiting for My High School Love Who Went to Vietnam—When We Finally…

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I had no idea the cruelest truth was still waiting for me.

One afternoon, my telephone rang while I was still brushing attic dust from my hands.

“You’ve been up there again, haven’t you,” Margaret said.

My older sister always knew.

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“It’s spring. I air it out.”

The cruelest truth was still waiting for me.

“It’s been fifty-five years.” Her voice softened into pity. “Waiting for him was admirable once, but it’s time to let the ghost go. You’re seventy-three, not eighteen.”

“I’m fine, Margaret.”

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“You’ve spent your whole life waiting on a boy who isn’t coming back. Mother said the same thing before she passed. So did Daniel’s mother, God rest her.”

I closed my eyes.

“Waiting for him was admirable once, but it’s time to let the ghost go.”

Daniel’s mother had never quite approved of me, back when there was a “back then” to speak of.

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“I remember what everyone said,” I told her.

“Then remember it,” Margaret pressed. “That house of yours is too quiet. Come live near me. I’m the only family you’ve got left.”

She still lived in our parents’ old house, the one she’d inherited when Father died.

“I remember what everyone said.”

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“I like my quiet,” I said.

“Suit yourself. You always did.”

She sighed the way she’d been sighing at me since we were girls.

“I only call because I worry,” she finished.

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“I know you do.”

We said our goodbyes and I set the phone down.

“I only call because I worry.”

I thought about the letter I’d once mailed to Daniel’s parents.

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It came back unopened after their house changed hands.

I thought about the VA clerk who told me, year after year, that his status hadn’t changed.

I thought about how I’d asked Margaret a dozen times whether anyone had ever come by our old street looking for me.