With time, forgetting grew easier. With time, her nightmares faded. And with time, she became what her mother always wanted. She graduated from college, went on to get her master’s, and afterward got a job teaching language arts classes at a public high school. When Celine called again to say she was getting married, saying how she wanted the best friend she’d known to be there, Mira believed she had finally made herself anew, but she’d been wrong. What she’d tried to forget had always been there, this piece of her past, this history. Mira had tried, had spent a decade trying, but a person can’t run away from who they are. Soon enough, what’s been buried will rear itself again.

VI.

AFTER AN HOUR’S worth of effort, Mira was ready for the rehearsal dinner. Her hair had curled from the day’s heat so she had to press it again with her straightening iron. The sizzle and pop of her hair’s submission filled the silence as she finished, and once straight, she brushed it into a side bun, hoping the style would hold for the rest of the evening. She did her makeup and painted her nails a clear polish with flecks of gold. The other women would have professional manicures and she hoped none of them would notice the difference. She wet a razor and ran it over her legs. After she was finished, she put on the dress, a gold-sequined backless cocktail dress she’d paid too much money for and knew she would never wear again. She felt bare and exposed. A shawl would help but it was too hot. Underneath the dress, sweat gathered in the crevices of her body, and the trickling against her skin made her want to undress and forget the whole thing, but she straightened and tried ignoring it.

Mira barely recognized her reflection in the mirror. This was the most dressed up she could remember being. Her mascara already weighed heavy on her lids. Her smooth skin made smoother with the veil of foundation, powder, concealer. A gleam of highlighter on her cheekbones and the tip of her nose. Her lips lacquered with gloss. On her neck a diamond choker, the jewels fake but she hoped no one would notice, and on her wrist a bracelet to match. Who was this woman she saw? One who found herself worried over how she looked for a bunch of people who wouldn’t remember her name, if she’d fit in among them, if her dress and hair would make her pass. She didn’t owe any of them anything so she shouldn’t give a damn what they thought, but that didn’t stop her from checking her reflection once more, and though she may not have owed them, she owed Celine.