The Memory Dress

Epilogue

SUMMER

2019

We are all huddled around the laptop.

Me, Meredith, Fiona, Jake, Davina, Olivia, Maggie, and Willow.

Carina has closed the shop for an hour and joined us too.

Jessie is here as well.

She is Meredith’s new carer.

Someone we can all rely on to be here when she is needed the most.

Someone who can respond to Meredith’s needs as they arise, who can have fun with her without having to press pause on other commitments.

She’s young, her energy levels only topped by Maggie’s and, most important, Meredith instantly warmed to her.

The two of them spend hours every week buried in the memory room, rooting through all the chapters of Meredith’s life, in the unrushed way I know she needs.

They can’t see us, but we can see all of them.

There must be three hundred people packed into Christie’s in New York.

The auctioneer is already at his lectern, the gavel poised in his right hand.

And there is Meredith’s dress, expertly displayed on the mannequin next to him, the handwritten letter that Catherine sent to Meredith back in 1997 framed next to it.

We all listen intently as he retells the very personal story of this incredible dress.

I know them, of course, but I listen to the facts detailing the fabric and decoration and then I think about everything else this dress represents that today’s audience will never come close to appreciating.

The period of time in which it was conceived and made along with all the others, and how those days and months and years have remained so special to one woman—the one sitting beside me now enjoying all the fuss, if not perhaps entirely understanding why her dress is an ocean away.

Fiona and I discussed the rights and wrongs of it at length with everyone else, pulling Meredith into the conversation at every opportunity until we were confident she was giving us every indication the decision to sell was the right one.

It’s a beautiful, meaningful dress, the starting point of our whole adventure together, but I can’t allow my own sentimentality to swerve the story in the wrong direction.

What this dress can gift back to Meredith today is far more valuable than if it had stayed thrown over her bedroom chair where I found it.

Perhaps exactly as William planned it.

As I look at her now, struggling to contain Maggie on her lap, I know not even Meredith could have guessed the impact that period of her life would continue to have on her, how it would come to be so vital in connecting her past, present, and future.

How the stitches she made back then would help weave her own world back together in a positive way that makes sense when everything else around her suddenly didn’t.

The one thing I can’t bring myself to think about is what may have been—if Margot hadn’t darted into her apartment that morning, forcing us into each other’s company.

Everything that would have remained lost to her and the friendships I never would have made.

The changes I may never have made.

How I had no idea back then how much good would come from going back.

Making peace with everything that I had left unchallenged for so long and the rewards that bravery would gift me in return.

Meredith never wanted a life without William.

Theirs is a love so strong that her heart and mind simply refuse to let him go.

I have had to live my life without my sister, never getting to feel that depth of connection with her.

And it is only now that I have traced Meredith’s story with her that I can see the good that can come from my own experience.

A young woman called the Live Well Center last week and it was Olivia who took the call.

She managed to grab only snatches of her story between her sobs.

A lost sibling.

Tragic.

Unexpected.

No chance to say goodbye and now a weight of grief she doesn’t feel able to share with her family.

Olivia, even with all her experience, can’t help this woman.

Not like I can.

We don’t often schedule calls.

The whole point is the lines have to be kept clear so that those who need us the most can get through.

But this young woman will call again tomorrow night at six p.m.

and I will be waiting to listen to her, but also to speak, to share my own experience, in the hope that it helps her realize there is always a way back.

The bidding starts and there is a fevered response to the auctioneer’s directions, to every movement of his hand from one side of the room to the other.

The numbers climb quickly, sometimes with an almost imperceptible nod of a head.

Our cheers follow the rise upward.

It’s impossible to keep track of who has the advantage.

There are telephone and online bidders competing, too, probably from every continent in the world.

No one moves from their spot and twenty-five minutes later comes the loud whack of the gavel on wood.

It’s done.

There is a winner and the price they have paid far exceeds anything we might have hoped for.

The relief brings tears from most of us.

A champagne cork pops.

I feel a special poignancy at the fact this dress waited all this time before it reached its original intended destination.

There would have been no benefit to Meredith if it had made it to Christie’s back in 1997.

The fact it is there now will be life-changing for her.

Just as she has been life-changing for me.

“Did someone really just pay all that money for a dress you made?” Maggie is stiff with excitement.

“I think so,” laughs Meredith.

“Well, then, you’re mega rich. The richest person I know!” She starts to dance around the room as only Maggie can. Then she sits, thinks for a minute while we are all hugging and kissing one another. “Can you make me one?” she asks, her eyes firmly on the prize.

“You’d like me to make you a dress?” The question causes a swell of emotion in Meredith that sends both her hands to her cheeks.

“One hundred percent I would, yes, please!” Maggie shouts. “It will need sparkles.”

“No one has asked me to do that for a very long time. I’ll need my tape measure.” She disappears in search of her essentials bag.

I know who I am hoping has won this auction, and there is a chance because the commentary tells us it has gone to a phone bidder.

If they get it, I know they will let Meredith see it whenever she wants.

She’ll be able to touch it, to cast her hands across the same fabric that William once did but knowing that this time others will be able to appreciate his work too.

They will both get the recognition they richly deserve.

Their full story will be told and preserved forever, safe from a decaying memory.

Somewhere dementia cannot touch it.

As summer starts to draw to a close, Meredith, Fiona, and I have a very special day planned.

We’re heading to the Bath Fashion Museum to see the dress, something I dearly hoped I may be able to say.

It feels like William is finally coming home.

Then we’ll be heading to the memorable garden where his ashes are scattered.

Fiona has arranged for a rosebush to be planted there in William’s memory.

We’ll be able to sit in the late-afternoon sunshine on one of the benches and chat through some of Meredith’s favorite stories.

I can ask her to tell me again about some of the dresses she’s made and how much she loved working with William.

Some days her clarity is breathtaking and on others she is empty and wordless, but we have all learned not to see those days as failures.

The two of them are so at ease in each other’s company, I sometimes wonder if it’s not only Meredith but Fiona, too, who has forgotten about the years when they weren’t together.

The physical likeness between father and daughter helps, I think.

Perhaps it is William whom Meredith sees when she looks at Fiona.

Either way, they seem to have reached a place of deep understanding and love.

Fiona has been a more regular face at Lansdown Crescent.

She’s managed to negotiate more time away from London so she can see Meredith every week, not just a handful of times a year.

I am taking a step back, giving them the space they need to reconnect with each other.

The space I need to focus on my own life too.

Jake has asked me to move into the coach house.

I spend most nights there anyway, but I don’t want to let practicalities squash romance, so I’m thinking about it.

Oh, who am I kidding? My mind was made up the minute he said I can choose where the dog bed goes.

There’s the most adorable French bulldog joining our home in three weeks and I’ve got a walking rota to plan.

It’s time to go. I grab the packet of egg sandwiches I’ve made, add them to my tote bag with the red flask of tea, and head downstairs to Meredith’s apartment.

She answers the door and I smile as I see her essentials bag swinging from her right wrist. Her face is wonderfully calm but slightly puzzled. She’s forgotten who I am.

“Morning, Meredith,” I say once again, a smile overtaking my face. “It’s Jayne from upstairs.”