Buttons

         In the back of a closet, in a bedroom, in a small apartment overlooking a park there is a dress. It will never be worn by it's purchaser. It will never be taken out of the bag again by her. In the back of the closet it shall sit, wrapped up in a bag to protect it's pure white color.

         Every once in a while she will come across it when looking for something else of more vital importance. She fingers the edge of the bag lightly, quietly wondering to herself why she keeps it. And even more quietly wondering how something so right ended up so wrong.

         Days, weeks and months will pass between these visits to that part of the closet. One spring day, after many months of forgetting about the dress in the corner of the closet, she will rediscover it. She's packing up the closet, and the rest of the apartment by the park to move to a bigger place downtown.

         Carefully she pulls the dress bag out of the closet and unzips it for the first time in many years. Her fingers linger over the lace bodice and glide down to the silk of the skirt. Her mind begins to drift back to when she bought the dress. The look on her best friends face as she stood on the pedestal.

         She gently removes the garment bag and turns the dress around and gazes for a long minute at the buttons down the back. She once found them wistful and romantic. She's transported back to the night that changed it all. The sounds in the other room. The empty wine bottles. The shoes with the tiny buttons on the side that could only belong to one person.

         She shakes her head in disgust as tears threaten the back of her eyes. She promises herself she won't do this. Forgetting her once gentle caresses of the gown she unceremoniously  shoves it back into the bag and hangs it back in the closet.

         A few days later she watches as the movers grab the rest of the boxes, ready to take her to the bigger apartment with the great view and sweet man that she would soon call home. One man questions the dress in the closet. She assures him she will take care of it before she leaves.

         A week later a new girl moves into the apartment overlooking the park. She begins to unpack her clothes, placing them on hangers with great care, to be placed in the closet. She opens the closet door and finds the garment bag. Unzipping it quickly she finds the dress. Her breath is taken away by it's beauty. She contacts her landlord to let him know that the dress was left.

         She is given the number of the girl who lived there before. She calls and explains that the girl mistakenly left her dress in the closet. The dress's original owner assures the new tenant that she did leave the dress but has no use for it now. The girl may keep it if she wishes, the old owner does not care.

         One bright fall day a dress with no buttons or lace is stepped into by a smiling girl in an apartment downtown. Her mind does not drift back to the dress with the lace in the forgotten closet. Her only thoughts are of that of the future, without shoes with buttons but filled with unmeasurable happiness.