She shopped quickly, choosing three dresses off the rack and asking the salesgirl where she could try them on. The salesgirl’s name was Caitlin. She introduced herself when Sherri walked in and then went right back to scrolling through her Instagram feed, smiling to herself.

Into a pile on the dressing room floor went Sherri’s cotton T-shirt, her sensible, ugly, ill-fitting bra, her awful, awful cargo pants. On went the first dress. She didn’t need to try on the second and third dresses. She knew as soon as she put it on that the first one was an instant win.

It was gold. Back in the day she’d always chosen gold for a big night out. It matched her then-hair. “My golden goddess,” Bobby used to call her and, yes, she could admit it, she’d loved it when he called her that. She often painted her nails gold too. Sometimes, gold eye shadow. She wasn’t scared of standing out back then—she liked standing out. Bobby liked it too. He liked for them both to stand out. She even had a gold bikini.

It felt good to be wearing a pretty dress again. No, more than good—it felt amazing. Sherri Griffin took a deep breath and stepped out of the dressing room to access the three-way mirror. Caitlin, who was leaning on the counter that held the register, turned around, put her phone down, and started to look interested. “Wow,” she said. “You look super hot in that dress.” She didn’t even add, for an old person. (At least not out loud.)

“Thanks,” said Sherri modestly, but not too modestly. Because Caitlin was right. Sherri examined her reflection from every angle. The dress clung to her in all the right places. It fell to just above the knee, where it flared out a bit, but before it got there it lay flat against her stomach and hugged the curves of her hips. The dress had two thin straps across each shoulder and took a generous dip between her breasts. Sherri hadn’t worn a dress like this in—well, it had been a long time. It had been so, so long.

She studied her reflection some more. In the beginning of the program, and before that, during the nightmare days of the trial, and before that, during the even bigger nightmare days following Madison Miller’s disappearance, she’d lost too much weight, and her curves had departed without warning, like tired party guests. Her skin had started to sag. But over the course of the summer, ice cream cone by ice cream cone, lobster roll by lobster roll, she’d filled back out. She and Katie had put in enough hours at the beach that her color was good; the gold of the dress made her skin positively glow. And her cleavage! Her cleavage was back, like a dear friend who’d gone on a long voyage but now had returned.