That glitter and hush-breath quality just slipped away. The way most things do, I’ve found out. The way my mother’s life did, gently, bit by bit, until it was gone and I didn’t even have the satisfaction of mourning. And my love too. There isn’t even a scene—not for me, nothing so definite—just the seepage, the worms of time. Like those wedding dresses my cousins and I found so long ago in the old storage trunks. They looked all right. But when you picked them up, they fell of their own weight, without even a breath touching them, and even the bits of pieces you held in your fingers crumpled.
