Teenaged girls giggled around my sister and me at the mall. They walked together in a tight group, swinging bags of merchandise: clothes, make-up, jewelry. Any minute I expected to see my own daughter Liz come around a corner with a group of her friends. But Liz wasn’t here, I had to remind myself. Just the day before she’d died in a fire in the duplex she shared at college.
“Let’s try this one,” my sister Sue said, guiding me into a shop that looked familiar. Of course. Liz had worked here during high school. A true clothes-a-holic, she’d loved the discount the job got her on the merchandise. Most of her earnings went right back to the store. Now I had come here to buy her one last outfit. The one she would be buried in.
“Can I help you?” the salesgirl asked.
“Just looking,” I said. I felt numb and far away. Sue had driven us to the mall because I didn’t think I could focus on the road. In fact, I couldn’t really focus on anything. I couldn’t even cry or get angry. At the funeral home I’d sat in silence with my husband and my father while the director went over all the details. “You’ll need to bring in some clothing,” he explained. “Any time in the next couple of days.”
I’d sat like a statue, not really understanding. It wasn’t until I got home that his words actually registered: Liz needed new clothes. Her entire wardrobe had burned up in the fire with everything else.
I flipped through the racks around me in the store. How many times had Liz needed new clothes? She seemed to come up with a reason every other week. My daughter was a champion shopper. She often gave her still-wearable clothes away to friends to make space in her closet for something new. “Liz didn’t get her love of shopping from me,” I said, holding up a dress for Sue’s opinion.
I thought back to the last time I’d visited this very mall with Liz. “Let’s make this quick,” I’d said when we arrived. To me shopping was a chore to be taken care of fast.
“I’ve got a list of all the stores I want to go to,” Liz replied. When we finished at the first one Liz took a couple of things up to the counter. “Could you put these on hold for me?” she asked the saleslady. “I’ll be back before you close.”
“Why didn’t you just buy them?” I asked as we left.
“I don’t know if I will,” said Liz. “I need to see everything before I decide.” She dragged me all over the mall. She tried on more outfits than I’d worn in my entire life. If shopping was a sport in the Olympics Liz would win a gold medal. She put clothes on hold at several stores. Only at the end of the day, when her mother was about ready to collapse, did she return to buy a chosen few.
By that time I’d seen so many clothes I couldn’t tell what was special about the ones she brought home. Only Liz knew why they were exactly right. I put the dress back on the rack. Sue agreed: It just wasn’t Liz. How could I ever pick the right outfit without her? The clothes in the store swam together, like a jumbled mass of fabric.
Liz, you’ve got to help me here, I thought to myself. I have absolutely no idea what to pick.
Sue and I moved through the store. I let my eye rove over the racks. A pair of khaki pants caught my eye. I grabbed a pair in Liz’s size. A few minutes later I reached for a pale blue sweater. “That’s pretty,” Sue said. “Let’s get that.”
“I have no idea if this is what Liz would want,” I admitted.
I saw Liz in my mind picking through racks of clothes. That was when she was alive, I reminded myself. Maybe she can’t care about things like that anymore. “I guess it doesn’t really matter if I don’t get it right,” I said. Once I had wished my daughter didn’t care so much about clothes. Now the thought of her not caring, or not being able to care, was unbearable. It meant she no longer existed, not on earth or anywhere. I would never see her again.
The funeral went smoothly, not that I would have noticed any mistakes. Nothing mattered to Liz anymore. Why should it matter to me? The day after the funeral my sister-in-law stopped by. Karen was the family photographer. She’d gone through her collection for shots of Liz I might like.
“I found one from last Christmas when Liz was over at my house,” she said, digging into her purse. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen it.”
She passed me a photo. There was Elizabeth smiling and happily sitting on a couch with her cousins. It took me a moment to focus on anything besides her face, but when I did I couldn’t believe it. Liz was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a pale blue sweater. Almost identical to the outfit I had bought. What were the chances?
You weren’t on your own, I realized. Sue had done her best to advise me, but in the end I’d asked for Liz’s help. An angel with good fashion sense had helped me choose the perfect outfit for my daughter, the champion shopper. No longer with me on earth, but alive as ever in heaven, where one day I will see her again. No doubt she had a new outfit all picked out for the occasion.
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