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Part 2: For Elizabeth
Lily froze with the envelope in her hand.
Elizabeth stopped. She was breathing hard.
I looked at the envelope. The seal had been opened once. Then carefully pressed back down.
I said, quietly, Elizabeth. You’ve seen this before.
She didn’t answer.
Lily handed me the envelope. I opened it.
It was a letter from my mother. Dated six years ago. Three weeks before she passed.
Dear Elizabeth,
I know I won’t see Lily grow up. The doctors say I have weeks.
So I’ve been sewing. One costume for every Halloween until she turns eighteen. I made them all a little big. She’ll grow into them.
I’m leaving them with you instead of my daughter. Because you’re her mother, and I want you to be the one who gives them to her. Every October.
Please tell her they’re from Great-Grandma Margaret. Tell her I sewed them with love.
I know homemade things aren’t your style. That’s all right. You don’t have to love them. Just let her choose.
With love, Margaret.
I looked up at Elizabeth. She was crying.
She said, quietly, I found the trunk when we helped clean out her house. I read the letter.
I put it back in the trunk. I brought it here. I told myself I’d give them to Lily when she was old enough.
She said, Then I just never did.
Lily looked at her mother. She said, Great-Grandma made me costumes?
Elizabeth nodded. She couldn’t speak.
Lily said, For every Halloween?
Elizabeth nodded again.
Lily held the fairy costume against her chest. She said, I want to wear this one.
Elizabeth turned and walked out of the room. I heard the front door close.
That night, my son called. He was confused. He said Elizabeth came home upset and went straight to bed.
The next morning, Elizabeth called me herself.
She was defensive. She said I had embarrassed her in front of her daughter. She said the costumes were from my side of the family, so of course I’d take their side.
She said, Lily’s going to wear the costume I bought. I paid three hundred dollars for it.
She said, You and your mother don’t get to decide what my daughter wears.
I kept my voice calm.
Elizabeth, I said, my mother wrote that letter to you. Not to me. She wanted you to be the one.
She said she didn’t want to talk about it.
She hung up.
An hour later, my son texted me.
Mom, I just found out Elizabeth knew about that trunk for six years.
Can I come over? There’s something about her childhood I think you should know.
Part 3: Six Years
My son came over that afternoon. We sat at my kitchen table. And I let myself count.
Six years since my mother passed.
She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August. She passed in October. Eight weeks.
During those eight weeks, she was so weak she could barely sit up. I visited every day. I never saw her sewing.
She must have done it at night. While I was home.
Ten costumes. Fairy. Witch. Cat. Pumpkin. Pirate. Butterfly. Astronaut. Ladybug. Princess. Owl.
Hundreds of hours of work. In eight weeks. With hands that shook from the medicine.
Then I counted six Halloweens.
Six Halloweens Lily wore store-bought costumes. Six years that trunk sat in my guest room. Under the window. Waiting.
Then my son told me about Elizabeth.
He said she grew up poor. Very poor. Her mother sewed all her clothes from thrift store fabric.
He said, In third grade, she wore a homemade witch costume to school. The other kids laughed so hard she hid in the bathroom all afternoon.
He said, She swore she’d never let her daughter wear anything homemade. Ever.
He said, When she read your mother’s letter, she told me she panicked. She said it felt like being eight years old in that bathroom again.
I sat there for a long time.
I thought about my fairy costume. Hanging by the fireplace. About Elizabeth laughing at it.
She wasn’t laughing at me. She was laughing at an eight-year-old girl in a homemade witch costume.
On Halloween morning, there was a knock at my front door.
It was Elizabeth.
She was holding the shiny shopping bag.
Part 4: Elizabeth
Elizabeth stood on my porch. Her eyes were red. She hadn’t slept.
She said, I came to talk about the costumes.
She set the shopping bag down. She said, Lily cried all night. She wants to wear Margaret’s fairy costume. Or yours. She keeps changing her mind.
She said, I told her she’s wearing the one I bought. That’s final.
Then she started talking faster.
She said I don’t understand what it’s like for kids. She said they notice everything. Who has the expensive costume. Who has the homemade one.
She said, I’m protecting her. That’s all I’m doing.
She said, Kids are cruel. I don’t want her to be laughed at.
Then she said the thing she came to say.
Please put Margaret’s costumes away. Tell Lily they’re too old to wear. For her sake.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I didn’t want Lily laughed at either. Not ever.
I took a slow breath.
Elizabeth, I said quietly, my son told me about third grade. The witch costume.
Her face went white.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, I said. No child should ever hide in a bathroom because of what her mother made her.
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears.
But Lily isn’t you, I said gently. She chose my costume before she even knew about the trunk. She said she likes it better.
My mother wrote that letter so you could let her choose.
I’m not putting them away.
Elizabeth stood on my porch, shaking.
Then she said, very quietly, My mother made that witch costume out of an old curtain. She stayed up three nights.
I told her I hated it. In front of everyone.
She cried. I never apologized. She passed when I was nineteen.
Then the front door opened behind me.
Lily stood in the doorway. She was wearing Margaret’s green fairy costume. The wings were a little crooked.
She looked at her mother.
She said, Mommy, do you think Great-Grandma Margaret would think I look pretty?
Part 5: Ten Halloweens
Elizabeth looked at her daughter for a long moment.
Then she knelt down on my porch. She fixed one of Lily’s crooked wings.
She said, quietly, I think she’d think you look perfect.
Lily smiled. She spun around in a circle. The tiny gold stars caught the light.
Then Lily said, Mommy, did you ever have a costume somebody made for you?
Elizabeth was quiet.
Then she said, Yes. My mommy made me a witch costume. Out of an old curtain.
Lily said, Was it pretty?
Elizabeth’s face crumpled. She said, It was beautiful. I just didn’t know it then.
That night, Lily went trick-or-treating in Margaret’s fairy costume. My costume hung by the fireplace. Elizabeth’s store-bought one stayed in the bag.
Lily said she’d wear mine next year. And Elizabeth’s the year after. She said everybody gets a turn.
At school the next day, two girls in Lily’s class asked where she bought her costume.
Lily told them her great-grandma made it. Before she was even born. In heaven.
They thought it was the coolest thing they’d ever heard.
Elizabeth told me about it on the phone. She was laughing. Then crying.
A week later, she came over on a Saturday. She was holding a bag of fabric.
She said, Can you teach me to sew?
I said, Of course.
We started with something small. A pillowcase. She sewed it crooked. She laughed at herself.
By spring, she was making Lily’s summer dresses.
Elizabeth found an old photograph that winter. Of herself at eight years old. Standing on a porch in a black witch costume with a purple curtain cape.
She framed it. It hangs in her hallway now, next to a photo of Lily in Margaret’s fairy costume.
This October, Elizabeth and I opened the cedar trunk together.
We took out the witch costume with the purple cape. Lily. Age 9.
Elizabeth held it up. She ran her fingers over the tiny stitches.
She said, quietly, Margaret made the cape out of an old curtain too.
I hadn’t noticed. But she was right.
Elizabeth was quiet for a long moment.
Then she smiled.
She said, I think our mothers would have been friends.
