When my mother died, that blue dress was the only thing that still felt like her arms around me. I’d already planned to keep it, quietly, until my sister found it in the closet and announced she was taking it “because Mom loved me in this color.” My brother chimed in that it should be donated, “so no one has to fight.” Suddenly, we were screaming about childhood, favoritism, and who had been there at the end. The dress just hung there between us, like evidence.

It ended when my dad, who had been silent, picked it up and pressed it to his face. His shoulders shook, and for the first time since the funeral, he sobbed. The room went still. We weren’t rivals anymore; we were three kids who’d just lost their anchor. In the end, we cut a small square from the hem for each of us, and packed the rest away with his things—where it belonged, not as a prize, but as a reminder that love was never meant to be divided, only shared.