The Hot-Pink Ballgown
THE
HOT-PINK BALLGOWN
The young woman hadn’t planned to buy anything in a bright colour – she knew her role was to complement her husband, not stand out – but she loved the dress.
The colour made her happy, and the shape – short sleeves with a slight puff, sweetheart neckline and full skirt – flattered her.
She had navy shoes she could wear with it, and a navy evening bag.
‘Pink?’ her husband said when she showed him her purchase. ‘That’s a bit … much.’ His mouth twisted as he frowned.
She felt crestfallen. The last thing she wanted was to disappoint or upset him. But she also didn’t want to return the dress, refusing to believe that anything that made her so happy could be in any way wrong.
On the night of the dinner she put on the dress and shoes, chose some understated pearl earrings and a pearl necklace, put her hair up and chose her lipstick shade to match the dress.
When her husband saw her his eyes lit up and she knew that he no longer thought the dress was a bit much.
As they arrived at their table, the partner’s wife came to greet them. ‘What a lovely dress,’ she said, and the young woman felt even more vindicated.
The evening was splendid, and she received many a compliment.
There were other black-tie events as the years went on, but it was difficult to wear the dress again, she found, because its colour was so memorable.
Worse than wearing a dress that might be a bit much was wearing one that people remembered seeing before, because a re-worn dress implied that you weren’t successful enough to buy new clothes.
And she very much wanted people to think her husband was successful – not because it was important to her, but it was to him.
What was important to her was that her husband was kind and strong, and he was both those things.
Which was why his sudden death, seven years after the first black-tie dinner, shocked her so deeply that she couldn’t function well for many months.
It was both a small comfort to her and a devastation that they hadn’t had children – there had been two miscarriages in that time, and they weren’t sure if they wanted to try again.
It took her a long time to remove his clothes from their small house in Willoughby.
She knew she had to; she couldn’t keep them like trophies of the life he had lived well if not long enough.
She also knew she had to remove the clothes of hers that were tied to his professional life.
They wouldn’t be needed again. Out went the hot-pink ballgown, along with other evening dresses she had bought for other events.
Everything went into the charity bin at her local shopping centre.
She didn’t feel better afterward. In fact, she regretted bitterly that she hadn’t kept the hot-pink ballgown that made her so happy just by looking at it.
Because she needed to access happiness again.
There were glimpses of it from time to time, but not enough.
By the time she emerged from her grief enough to feel like she could begin to see the light, two years had passed and the hot-pink ballgown was on to its next life.