“Right there in the living room.”

“Your mother did?”

“My mother,” I said.

“She told me the nurse carried you off in a blanket because you didn’t live through the night.

Then she put a stone in the garden and let me buy three-dollar carnations for fifty-five years.”

Sarah lifted the gown by its narrow shoulders.

She held it up against the dark navy of her suit jacket.

“It was cut down from her wedding dress,” I said.