The gown needed pressing.
Vivian held it up to the light in the conservatory, turning it slowly, checking the lace at the hem. Eighty years old. Handmade Brussels lace, Irish linen, seed pearls along the bodice that had yellowed to the color of old piano keys. Four Ashworth babies had worn it. Oliver had worn it, thirty-six years ago, in the chapel at All Souls when his face was red and furious and his fists were clenched against a world he had not asked to join.
There was a crease along the front panel. The dry cleaner had pressed it wrong, folded it at the waist rather than hanging it, and the linen had taken the crease and held it. Vivian set up the ironing board in the conservatory because the light was best there, and she pressed the panel with a damp cloth over the linen, the iron on its lowest setting, moving in slow strokes the way her mother-in-law had shown her. Old linen was not forgiving. It remembered what you did to it.
She held it up again. The crease was gone. The gown hung straight, the lace falling in the pattern it had held since 1986. She draped it over the back of a chair and covered it with tissue paper.
This story continues for members of Vesper.