Our whole living room smelled like starch and hot steam.
My mother, Millie, worked nights as a nurse’s aide at Greenfield Memorial Hospital.
She came home at seven every morning smelling like hospital soap, her feet swollen, her eyes red.
While the other girls at Oakdale High carried designer bags and wore bracelets that cost more than our rent, I wore secondhand clothes from the church thrift store.
I had learned to ignore the laughter.
By senior year, I had accepted reality.
No one was going to invite me to prom.
Then one evening, my mother set a plate of mac and cheese in front of me and sat down across the table in her scrubs.
She was due at work in an hour.
“You only get one senior prom, baby,” she said gently. “Don’t let other people’s cruelty take that away from you.”
I stared at my plate.
“Mom, nobody’s going to ask me.”
