Eleanor smiled. “My mother, too. She had one almost identical. After she passed, my father… he couldn’t bring himself to throw away her things. But my sister and I, we cleaned the house in a weekend. I think we threw hers out.” A surprising pang of regret hit her. “I never thought I’d miss seeing it draped over the bathroom door.”

“That’s a ‘Long-Line,’ circa 1959,” a voice said. The shopkeeper, a woman with silver hair and sharp, kind eyes, emerged from behind a curtain. Her name tag read Violet . “My mother wore one just like it to every church picnic and school play. Said it held her together.”

Eleanor picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy. She ran her thumb over the worn, smooth spot on the inside of the waistband. “Someone’s fingers did this,” she whispered. “From pulling it on.”

Eleanor bought it for twelve dollars.

That afternoon, she didn’t sit in her usual chair and wait for dinner. She walked to the community center and signed up for the senior line-dancing class. She’d been meaning to for a year.