For a long time after the funeral, people in our town talked about the red dress.
At first, that bothered me.
I didn’t want my son’s whole life to turn into one strange story about his best friend’s outfit. Jack was so much more than that.
But eventually, I understood.
The dress wasn’t really about Theo.
It was proof.
Proof that even in the hardest months of his life, Jack stayed exactly who he was.
Funny. Sarcastic. Stubborn. Thoughtful.
And always ready with one more ridiculous joke.
The day after the funeral, Theo tried to give the dress back to his sister.
Emma refused.
“Absolutely not,” she told him. “That dress has funeral memories on it now. It’s yours. Forever.”
So he kept it.
It hangs in the back of his closet. Next to his Spider-Man pajamas from our house, the ones he outgrew when he was eleven.
Theo kept coming to our house after Jack died.
Every Sunday for dinner. Every single Sunday. Through his senior year. Through college.
He still sits in the chair by the window.
The little bedroom at the top of the stairs is still Theo’s room. We never changed it. He still has a toothbrush in our bathroom.
On Jack’s birthday every year, the three of us watch the worst horror movie we can find. And Theo makes grilled cheese sandwiches.
He burns them on purpose.
“For the flavor,” he says.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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