My name’s Rachel. I’m 25, and my life has been shaped by one loss and one dream I refused to let go of. When I was 14, I lost my mom to cancer, which shattered something deep inside me.

One week, she was humming in the kitchen while I did my homework, still braiding my hair before school. Next, she was gone. I couldn’t understand how life could shift that suddenly. I remember coming home from school and hearing silence. Not the comforting kind. The terrifying kind that says someone you love won’t be coming back.

After the funeral, I couldn’t stop clinging to the things she left behind. Her scent still lingered on the curtains. Her neat cursive filled the margins of recipe cards tucked into drawers. Her voice, her laugh — it lived in the old photo frames lining the hallway. Sometimes, I’d press my ear to her closet door just to pretend she was inside, getting dressed for the day.

One afternoon, when the house was too quiet and grief sat heavy on my chest, I opened her closet. I ran my fingers over her dresses and slid her rings onto my fingers, one by one.

Then I found it. At the very back, zipped into a garment bag, tucked behind coats and scarves — her wedding gown.

Satin and lace. Soft but regal. And timeless.

I held it to my chest as if I could feel her heart still beating through it. Right there, standing alone with the fading scent of her perfume clinging to the fabric, I made myself a promise.

When I get married, I’ll wear this. I’ll wear it for her. I’ll carry her with me down the aisle.

It wasn’t her dying wish; it was mine. My way of honoring the love she poured into me, of keeping her alive in the moments that mattered most.

*****

Three years later, my dad remarried.

That’s when Sandra walked into our lives, all cool lipstick smiles and softly spoken words. At first, she didn’t seem cruel. She made polite conversation and brought home candles that smelled like linen or lavender.

She’d laugh lightly at dinner and say things like, “Oh, Rachel, you’re so grown-up already.” It wasn’t what she said — it was how she moved through the house, as if it wasn’t mine anymore.

It started small.

A framed photo of Mom and me at the county fair vanished from the mantel. I asked about it.

“Oh, I thought the shelf looked too crowded,” Sandra said with a soft shrug. “I put it away for safekeeping.”

Next came the ceramic vase Mom had picked out during a road trip, the one that always sat in the dining room. Gone.

“It had a crack, Rachel,” Sandra told me, like I was silly for even asking. “Best to throw it out before it shatters everywhere.”

Then it was the pillows Mom stitched during her chemo — soft, embroidered things that made the couch feel like home. Sandra tossed those too.

“They were too old-fashioned. Don’t you think the living room looks fresher now?”

Each time, her tone was smooth and reasonable, like she was doing me a favor. Week by week, more of Mom disappeared, replaced by things that smelled like a catalog and looked like a hotel.

The curtains went next. The floral ones Mom had chosen. They were swapped out for gray, sterile drapes. “These look more modern,” Sandra said with a smile.

Mom’s cookbooks also disappeared from the shelf. “Outdated recipes,” Sandra murmured while stirring pasta.

The quilt that still carried the scent of Mom’s shampoo? Sandra just shrugged and said it was “ruined in the wash.”

Even the wedding portrait — the one of Mom and Dad, smiling in the sun just after saying their vows — disappeared from the wall. In its place came a photo of Sandra and Dad on their honeymoon, grinning on a beach with matching sunglasses.

I wanted to scream, but Dad never saw any of it. He was always working. By the time he came home, Sandra had already smiled her way through the changes. If I said anything, she’d just tilt her head and offer some gentle, patronizing line.

“Sweetheart, you’re still grieving. I understand. But it’s been years. You’ll adjust.”

She erased my mom, room by room, and I couldn’t stop her.

But one thing, one sacred thing, stayed safe: Mom’s wedding dress. I hid it deep in the back of my closet, zipped tight, wrapped like treasure. I checked on it sometimes, just to make sure she hadn’t touched it. And each time, I’d run my fingers across the lace and whisper, “Not this. Never this.”

Years passed. I finished college, landed a job, and built a life.

Then came Daniel.

He was nothing like anyone I’d dated. He was steady and warm, the kind of person who listens with his whole heart. We met at a friend’s game night, and I knew within weeks — this was someone I could trust.

When he got down on one knee in the park where we first kissed, I didn’t even let him finish the sentence before saying yes.