He did not.

When it came time, Julian did not put the red dress in a box in the attic.

Instead, he hung it, neatly and openly, in the closet of his new room, where he would see it every single day, a vibrant, living splash of red among the ordinary clothes of an ordinary young man’s life.

Because the dress was not a relic to be hidden away.

It was, he told me, a reminder he wanted to keep in the light, where his sister had always wanted to be.