Every evening, I stopped outside the boutique, staring at dresses I couldn’t afford — not to wear, but to create. I was just a cashier with sketches on napkins, a girl who dreamed of sewing beauty from scraps. Around my neck hung an old brass key, the only link to the parents I never knew. I thought it was nothing, until my friend Nancy recognized it as a bank deposit key.
The next day, we walked into a grand marble bank, my hands trembling as I showed the key. To my shock, it matched an account opened the day I was born. Inside waited not only savings but also a letter — written by my mother, who had died of cancer when I was a baby. Her words carried love I had never known: “I left everything I had for you, my June. You were my dream.”
Tears blurred my eyes as I followed her final instruction to “visit 42 Cypress Lane.” There, beneath a weeping willow, I found her resting place — Lena Maynard, Loving Mother. I knelt, whispering, “I love you too, Mama,” as the breeze curled around me like her arms. For the first time, I felt I belonged to someone.
Weeks later, bolts of fabric filled my small apartment, the hum of machines replacing silence. My first handmade dress stood proudly on a mannequin, not just cloth but proof of love passed down. When Nancy handed me an invitation to a fashion showcase, I pressed it to my chest. This time, I wasn’t dreaming from the sidewalk — I was stepping into the life my mother had left me.