On the eve of my birthday, my father who’d already passed away warned me in a dream about my favorite dress, and my refusal to listen ignited a birthday argument that none of us could ever fully undo or forget

---

The dream didn’t feel like a dream at first.

It felt like my old kitchen.

Same off-white cabinets my mom used to swear were cream, not yellow. Same little crooked outlet with the scorch mark from when my dad tried to fix the toaster “his way” instead of calling an electrician. Same round table, the one we bought at a yard sale and “rescued” with sandpaper and too much varnish.

And him.

My father stood by the sink, sleeves rolled up, hands braced on the counter like he always did when he was thinking hard about something but didn’t want anyone to know.

He looked exactly like he did the year before he got sick. Full cheeks. Dark hair just starting to gray at the temples. The tiny scar on his chin from when he slipped on ice as a kid. The details were painfully, lovingly accurate.

I knew I was dreaming in that weird way where you know and you don’t. Some part of me whispered, This isn’t real, he’s gone, and another part whispered right back, Who cares, he’s here.

I stared at him.
He stared at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

My voice sounded like it did when I was twelve—high, uncertain, hopeful.

He smiled, tired and soft. “Hey, kiddo.”

The nickname hit me like a wave. I hadn’t heard it out loud in almost five years.

I walked toward him, my socks whispering over the tile, half expecting to pass right through him.

But when I reached for his arm, my fingers met warm skin.

I grabbed his forearm with both hands, like I could pin him in place.

“You’re—” I swallowed. “You’re…”

“I know,” he said gently. “Don’t say it.”

I didn’t. I opened my mouth and closed it again.

For a moment, we just stood there, me clutching his arm like a lifeline, him looking at me like he was memorizing my face.

“You look older,” he said. “And tired. You sleeping enough?”

A watery laugh punched out of me. “You’re… dead, and that’s your first comment? My sleep hygiene?”

He shrugged. “Some things are eternal. Seat belts, vitamins, decent sleep.”

I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. “You’re really here.”

He didn’t answer that. He moved his free hand up and brushed my hair back from my forehead, like he used to do when I was little and running a fever.

“You got taller,” he joked. “Again.”

“I stopped growing at sixteen,” I said.

“Yeah, well,” he said, “you look taller.”

That was when I noticed what I was wearing.

The red dress.

It hugged my waist, skimmed my hips, and hit just above the knee. The soft fabric had cost more than I’d planned to spend, but when I’d looked in the fitting room mirror two days ago, I’d thought, Okay. That’s what thirty looks like on me.

“This is the dress I bought,” I said, half to myself. “For the party.”

He followed my gaze down. His expression changed.

The warmth in his eyes cooled into something like worry. His shoulders stiffened.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “About that.”

My stomach tightened. “What?”

He took a breath, then looked at me with the same serious expression he used the day he taught me how to drive.

“Don’t wear the dress you bought tomorrow,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

“The red one,” he said. “The one with the square neckline. Don’t wear it to your birthday.”

I stared at him. “That’s… oddly specific.”

He gave a little half-smile. “Yeah, well. It’s me. When was I ever vague?”

“Why?” I asked.

He hesitated, eyes sliding briefly away from mine.

“It’s… not a good idea,” he said. “Just trust me on this. Wear something else.”

“Dad,” I said, the word thick in my throat, “you came back from—wherever you are—to criticize my outfit?”

“I’m not criticizing,” he said quickly. “You look beautiful, kiddo. You always do. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” I pressed.

His jaw tightened. “You know how sometimes I’d tell you not to take the freeway because I had a bad feeling, and then later we’d hear there was a pile-up?”

“You called that like… twice,” I said. “Out of hundreds of drives.”

“And both times were enough,” he said. “Some things you don’t gamble with. I’ve got that feeling now. About that dress. About tomorrow. Please. Don’t wear it.”

He squeezed my shoulders gently, his fingers warm and solid. I leaned into his touch automatically.

“How can something bad happen because of a dress?” I asked. “It’s just fabric.”

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the least important thing is the thing that tips everything over.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I know,” he replied. “You don’t have to. You just have to listen.”

He looked at me, and for the first time since he’d appeared in the dream, he looked scared.

My dad never looked scared. Frustrated, annoyed, worried, sure. But not… frightened.

“Promise me,” he said. “Say it. I need to hear you say it. You won’t wear that dress tomorrow.”

Something rebellious flared up in me.
The same something that used to flare when he’d hover over me while I was learning to cook.

“I’m almost thirty,” I said. “You don’t get to decide what I wear anymore. You’re not even…”

He flinched.

I couldn’t say “alive.” The word lodged in my throat.

He let go of my shoulders and stepped back, a shadow crossing his face.

“I’m not trying to control you,” he said. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“You always say that,” I shot back.

We both froze.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and suddenly we weren’t in the dream kitchen anymore. We were back in the old argument. The one about curfews and friends and trips I wanted to take alone. The one we never really finished before he got sick.

“Emma—” he began.

“Why now?” I cut in. “Why this? You didn’t come to tell me you’re proud of me, or that you miss us, or to tell Mom you love her. You came to tell me I’m not allowed to wear my favorite dress to my own birthday party?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

“That’s not what this is,” he said. “This isn’t about the dress. It’s about—”

“What?” I demanded. “Say it.”

He looked at me like he wanted to. Like the words were right there, pressed up against his teeth.

Then something flickered behind his eyes. The kitchen dimmed slightly, like a storm cloud passed over the house.

He swore under his breath. A word I hadn’t heard him say out loud since I was little and repeated it immediately in church.

“I don’t have time,” he muttered.

“For what?” I asked, panic rising. “Time for what?”

He stepped forward and grabbed my hands again.

“Please, Em,” he said. “Listen to me. Don’t wear the dress tomorrow. Pick anything else. The blue one you wore at your friend’s wedding. The black one you think is boring. Literally anything. Just not that one.”

“Why?” I whispered.

He pressed my hands to his chest.

“Because I love you,” he said. “Because I want you to live a long, boring life filled with ugly outfits. Because some things are not worth the risk, no matter how pretty they are.”

My eyes stung.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, but the conviction had gone out of my voice. “It’s just a dress.”

“You’re allowed to think I’m ridiculous,” he said. “You’re not allowed to ignore me on this. Promise me. Right now.”

The kitchen lights flickered again. His edges blurred, just a little.

“Dad,” I said, reaching for him as dread clawed up my spine. “Don’t go. Not yet. You just got here.”

He smiled sadly. “I never left,” he said. “That’s the thing.”

The room wavered around us.

“Promise,” he urged. “Say it.”

My chest ached. The words tore out of me.

“Fine,” I said. “I promise. I won’t wear the dress tomorrow.”

His shoulders sagged in relief.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry. For… so many things. Tell your mom I—”

The rest of the sentence dissolved into static.

“Wait,” I cried. “What? Tell her what? Don’t go!”

The kitchen stretched, the edges pulling away from us like taffy. My father’s face blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.

“Don’t wear the red dress,” he said one last time, his voice echoing like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel.

Then everything went white.

---

I woke up gasping.

My heart slammed against my ribs. Sweat slicked the back of my neck, dampening my pillowcase. For a second, I didn’t know where I was.

Then the digital clock on my nightstand came into focus.

6:12 a.m.
The day of my thirtieth birthday.

I stared at the ceiling, my chest heaving.

My apartment looked the same as it had when I’d gone to sleep—laundry chair still piled with clothes, sad plant drooping in the corner, string lights I forgot to turn off last night still glowing faintly.

Except now the air felt heavy. Charged.

“Don’t wear the red dress,” I whispered.

It sounded stupid out loud. Like a line from a low-budget horror movie.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and shuffled to the bathroom on autopilot. Cold water on my face. Toothpaste. My reflection in the mirror looked rattled, eyes wide, hair doing its usual morning impression of a confused bird’s nest.

“It was a dream,” I told my reflection. “Just a dream.”

I’d been thinking about my dad more than usual lately. Birthdays always did that. So did milestones. Thirty felt big. Adult. A line drawn between “young” and “you should probably know what you’re doing by now.”

Of course my brain conjured him up. Of course he had something to say.

Still, the details clung to me like cobwebs. The warmth of his hands on my shoulders. The way his voice had shaken. The look in his eyes.

I walked into my tiny living room and stared at the garment bag hanging from my curtain rod.

The red dress waited inside.
Bright. Bold. Perfect.

I’d bought it with the intention of making a point—for me, more than anyone else. That I wasn’t going to hide at my own birthday party. That I wasn’t the shy kid in the corner anymore. That I could be the center of attention without feeling like I was going to throw up.

I brushed my fingers over the zipper, then snatched my hand back like it burned.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “You’re not seriously going to let a dream dictate your outfit.”

Behind that voice, another whispered: You promised.

To a dream version of my dead father. In a kitchen that didn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t like he’d actually… heard me.

Still.

The promise sat in my chest like a pebble I couldn’t swallow.

I made coffee. I tried checking my phone, scrolling birthday texts that had started coming in right after midnight.

My best friend, Tessa:
Happy almost-30, grandma. Can’t wait to celebrate tonight. That red dress better be ready.

My brother, Liam:
Happy birthday, dork. Tonight I will honor you in the only way I know how: by eating as many mini quiches as possible at your party.

My mom:
Happy birthday, my heart. Call me when you wake up!!! Love you more than cake.

I smiled at the messages, but it felt thin. Forced.

The dream kept looping in my head.

By the time nine o’clock rolled around, I’d changed my mind about the dress eleven times. Wear it, don’t wear it, maybe wear it for photos and then change, maybe wear it with a sweater—

My phone buzzed. Mom.

I took a breath and answered.

“Happy birthday!” she sang before I could say hello.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice. “You’re calling early.”

“I’ve been awake for hours,” she said. “My first baby is thirty. I can’t sleep through that. Are you excited?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s a day.”

She sniffed. “Don’t you dare be cynical about your birthday. Your father and I waited a long, long thirty-eight weeks for you. You came out with more hair than the doctor had ever seen and immediately screamed at him. It was the best day of my life.”

I laughed. “That sounds on brand.”

“Are you wearing the dress?” she asked. “The red one? The one you sent me all the photos of from the fitting room?”

I hesitated. “I… don’t know yet.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” she demanded. “We planned this. We color-coordinated the decorations around that dress. The balloons are literally a matching shade of red, Emma.”

My mom using my full name like that made me feel twelve again. I winced.

“I had a weird dream last night,” I blurted.

She paused. “What kind of weird?”

“The Dad kind,” I said.

Silence crackled over the line for a second.

“Oh,” she said softly. “One of those.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamed about him. There had been a handful since he died. Most of them were vague, fuzzy things—him in the background of some other scene, or sitting at the edge of my bed saying nothing while I tried to tell him things I didn’t remember when I woke up.

This one felt different. Sharper. Like someone had turned the resolution up.

“He was standing in the old kitchen,” I said. “And he told me not to wear the red dress.”

“What?” she said. “Why?”

“Because he had a bad feeling,” I said. “Because something bad would happen. He was… kind of intense about it.”

Mom let out a breath that sounded like she’d been holding it since he got sick.

“And now you don’t know what to do,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. “My brain is giving me whiplash. Part of me is feeling superstitious, and part of me is rolling my eyes at myself.”

“Well,” she said. “You know what your father would say.”

“‘Better safe than sorry’?” I guessed.

“Exactly,” she said. “He wouldn’t call it superstition, he’d call it… preventative caution.”

I smiled despite myself. “That’s such a you-and-Dad phrase.”

“We shared a brain,” she said. “You know this.”

We sat with that for a moment. My throat tightened.

“You believe that kind of thing?” I asked quietly. “Dream visits?”

She hesitated. “I believe grief is strange,” she said. “And that love doesn’t really go away. I’ve had dreams about him that felt so real I woke up swearing he’d just walked out of the room.”

I swallowed. “Did he ever… tell you to do anything?”

She was quiet for a few seconds too long.

“Once,” she said finally. “After he died. I had a dream he told me not to drive on the highway on a certain day. I stayed off it. There was a bad accident just about the time I would’ve been on that stretch.”

She laughed softly. “Of course, I might’ve just read about the wreck the next day and patched the timeline together in my head. Brains are unreliable witnesses. You of all people know that.”

“I know,” I said. “But it still… makes you think.”

“It does,” she agreed. “So if I were you, I’d wear a different dress and save the red one for another day. We can change the decorations. Nobody’s going to care if the balloons are slightly off.”

“Tessa will care,” I said. “She planned this whole thing like it’s a mini wedding.”

“She’ll get over it,” Mom said briskly. “Better grumpy balloons than you being uncomfortable all night.”

She paused. “But it’s your birthday. Your body. Your choice. If you want to wear it, wear it. Just… don’t do it because you’re afraid you’ll look silly for listening to a dream.”

I exhaled slowly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think quickly,” she said. “We’re coming over at four to help set up. And Emma?”

“Yeah?”

“He loved red on you,” she said quietly. “If he told you not to wear it, he must have been scared. He didn’t scare easy.”

The ache in my chest flared. “I know.”

“Come by for brunch,” she said, changing the subject with the clumsy grace of someone who’s been living with grief too long. “Cake tasting. Yes, at ten in the morning. No, I will not apologize.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

When we hung up, I stared at the garment bag again.

Then I grabbed my keys.

---

Mom’s apartment smelled like sugar and cinnamon.

She’d gone overboard, as usual—streamers in three shades of red, plates with gold flecks, a banner that said “HELLO 30” with the zero slightly crooked.

“You’re early,” she said, surprised, when I knocked.

“I needed cake,” I said. “And distraction.”

She pulled me into a hug, holding on longer than usual.

“You okay?” she asked into my hair.

“Yes,” I said into her shoulder. “No. Maybe.”

She let me go and stepped back to look at my face.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” she said. “Nightmare hangover.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “Do I tell Liam?”

She made a face. “He’ll make ghost jokes for a year. But he should probably know. It was his father too.”

Liam arrived twenty minutes later, carrying a box of something that smelled like bacon and wearing a hoodie that said “Pizza Is My Birthstone.”

“Happy thirty, old lady,” he said, dropping the box on the counter and kissing my forehead. “You look… like you saw a ghost.”

“Funny,” I said flatly.

Mom shot him a look. “That’s not completely off,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “You okay, Em?”

I hesitated. Then I told him.

I told him about the kitchen, our dad’s hands on my shoulders, the warning about the dress.

When I finished, Liam stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“That’s… creepy,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said dryly.

“I mean in a cool way,” he said. “Like, if Dad’s going to show up, at least he’s being useful.”

Mom swatted his arm. “Liam.”

“What?” he said, shrugging. “If he’d said ‘Hey, kiddo, invest in this one stock,’ you’d already be on your laptop.”

“It wasn’t about money,” I said. “It was about me. About something happening if I wear the dress.”

He sobered. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a dream. But it felt… real.”

“Did he ever tell you not to do something before, and he was right?” Liam asked.

“Plenty of times,” I said. “Don’t date that one guy. Don’t drive tired. Don’t lend money to that one roommate.”

“And how often was he wrong?” Liam asked.

“I don’t keep a spreadsheet,” I said.

“He was right enough that you remember,” Mom said. “That’s the point.”

Liam chewed on his lip. “I had a dream about him once,” he said slowly. “Right after the funeral. He told me to stop driving so fast. I got a speeding ticket the next week and decided to, you know, sort of listen. So maybe there’s something to it.”

I stared at him. “You never told me that.”

He shrugged. “We all had quiet weird grief stuff. I didn’t want to add mine to the pile. Plus, I thought you’d say I needed therapy.”

“You do need therapy,” I said automatically.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We all do. Meanwhile, red dress.”

Mom poured coffee into three mugs. “If it were me,” she said, “I’d wear something else. I know myself. If he told me not to, I’d spend the whole night waiting for something bad to happen if I did it anyway. Not a fun way to spend a party.”

“I don’t want him to still be controlling my life from… wherever,” I said. “He already did that enough when he was here.”

There it was. The sentence I hadn’t planned to say. It landed in the middle of the kitchen like a dropped plate.

Mom winced. Liam looked between us.

“Em,” Mom said softly. “He was… protective.”

“He was controlling,” I said. “Protective plus fear plus stubborn equals controlling.”

She pressed her lips together. “He was scared,” she said. “Of losing us. Of losing you. I know you saw it as restriction. I saw it as him trying to hold everything together with duct tape and hope.”

“Those things can both be true,” I said. “But I’m the one who had to ask permission for every outfit, every trip, every decision. I’m the one who heard ‘that’s too risky’ every time I wanted to do something slightly different. Now he shows up in my dream and says, ‘Don’t wear that dress’? It feels like old times.”

Liam sighed. “You two always turn Dad into a debate topic.”

“Because he still is one,” I snapped.

Mom’s eyes flashed. “I loved that man,” she said. “Even when he drove me crazy. I’m not going to sit here and let his memory be reduced to ‘control freak.’”

“I’m not reducing him,” I said, heat rising in my chest. “I’m remembering my experience. You got a romantic partner. I got a parent.”

“You think he wasn’t a parent to me too?” she demanded. “We raised each other half the time.”

Liam held up his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We’re not doing this on your birthday. Ground rule. No full character trials today.”

Too late. The tension was already thick.

Mom folded her arms, shoulders tight. I stared at the floor.

“So what are you going to do?” Liam asked gently. “Wear it or not?”

I exhaled. “I don’t know yet.”

“Well, decide before Tessa gets here,” Mom said. “She’s going to have a meltdown if she has to redo the color scheme at the last minute.”

“Good,” I muttered. “Let her feel some of this chaos.”

Mom gave me a look. “We worked hard on this party,” she said. “Your father would be furious if you let a dream ruin it.”

“Oh, so now I’m supposed to do what he would have wanted?” I shot back. “Which is it, Mom? Listen to his dream or ignore it?”

She flinched. “Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out which version of him we’re honoring.”

The air in the room crackled.
The argument had shifted. It wasn’t about the dress anymore. It was about him. It was about us.

“Stop,” Liam said quietly. “Please. Just… stop.”

We did. Eventually. But the words hung there.

By the time I left Mom’s to head home and start getting ready, my nerves were shredded.

---

At three-thirty, Tessa burst into my apartment like a glitter-covered hurricane, arms laden with bags.

“Happy birthday, you radiant almost-thirty-year-old,” she yelled. “I brought emergency lashes, a backup eyeliner, and these weird under-eye patch things I saw on a video. We’re making you glow.”

“I thought the party was ‘chill,’” I said.

She snorted. “Chill doesn’t mean under-prepared. Now, where is she?”

“Who?”

“The dress,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The red one. My child. My muse.”

I swallowed. “About that.”

She froze. “No.”

“I had a dream about my dad last night,” I said. “He told me not to wear it.”

She blinked. “Okay, that’s… intense. But we already—”

“Tessa,” I cut in. “This is serious. It didn’t feel like a regular dream.”

She dropped her bags and sank onto the couch.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

I told her. Again. Kitchen, warning, promise.

By the time I finished, she looked torn.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Logically, it was a dream. Emotions are complicated. The brain does weird stuff. We both know this.”

“I know,” I said.

“But also,” she continued, “if I had a dream where my Nana told me not to get on a specific bus, I probably wouldn’t get on that bus. Not because I think she’s sending messages from the beyond, but because I’d be freaked out and tense the whole time.”

“Mom said the same thing,” I said.

“She’s not wrong,” Tessa said. “So the question is: do you want to spend your birthday feeling like defying your dream dad, or do you want to spend it not arguing in your head with a ghost?”

“When you say it like that, I sound unhinged,” I muttered.

“You sound like a person who misses her father and is trying to translate grief into rules,” she said gently. “It’s okay.”

I took a shaky breath. “Tess?”

“Yeah?”

“If I don’t wear the dress, are you going to be mad?”

She stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

“Emma,” she said, “I love you. I love that dress. But if you think I care more about your outfit than your peace of mind, then I have failed as a best friend and must resign.”

I laughed weakly. “Formal resignation letter, please.”

“On themed stationery,” she said. “But seriously. We can pivot. You have other dresses.”

“Nothing like that one,” I said.

“So then maybe the lesson here is you get to wear it on a different day,” she said. “Stretch its specialness out.”

I bit my lip. “I promised him,” I said quietly. “I promised Dream Dad I wouldn’t wear it.”

“Well,” she said, standing, “if there’s one thing your father taught you, it’s that when you make a promise, you keep it. Even if it makes you mad.”

“You’re really team ‘don’t wear it’?” I asked.

“I’m team ‘Emma gets through the night without a panic attack,’” she replied. “If that means we go with the dark blue wrap dress instead, then so be it. You look incredible in that one too. And I can spin the decor as ‘moody jewel tones’ if anyone asks.”

My eyes stung. “Thank you.”

“Always,” she said. “Now, shower. Hair. Makeup. And we’ll hang the red dress back up with full ceremony and maybe a small apology.”

“A ceremonial apology to a piece of fabric,” I said. “We are so well.”

She grinned. “We contain multitudes.”

---

At six p.m., when the first guests arrived, I was wearing the dark blue wrap dress.

It hugged my waist, skimmed my hips, hit just above the knee. It was comfortable and elegant and exactly the kind of thing thirty-year-old me was supposed to wear.

I still kept glancing at the garment bag in my bedroom, like it might unzip itself and stroll into the party.

“You look amazing,” people said as they came in. “Love the dress!”

“Thanks,” I said, accepting hugs, taking gifts, sipping the drink Liam pressed into my hand.

“You made the right call,” Tessa murmured, adjusting a string of lights.

“Ask me again at midnight,” I said.

The apartment filled up—friends from college, coworkers, neighbors, a couple of cousins who lived nearby. The music hummed, the food disappeared, the decorations looked unlike any party my small place had ever held.

Everyone seemed happy. Everyone seemed relaxed.

Except me.

I couldn’t shake it. The feeling that something was… off. That I had stepped sideways into the wrong version of the day.

I kept expecting something dramatic—a loud crash, a phone call, a sign. When nothing happened, the tension in my shoulders started to morph into irritation.

You changed your entire outfit for a dream, a voice in my head sneered. You let him reach across five years and control you again.

At eight-thirty, after my mom insisted on lighting every candle on the giant rectangle cake she’d brought, we gathered in the living room.

“Speech!” Liam yelled when the song ended and the last candle was puffed out.

“Speech!” everyone echoed.

I held the cake server like a microphone.

“I’m thirty,” I said. “I have no idea what I’m doing. But I somehow tricked all of you into thinking I’m worth celebrating, so… I must be doing something right. Thank you for being here. I’m grateful, I’m overwhelmed, and I’m probably going to cry later in my kitchen. That’s it. Eat cake.”

People laughed and clapped. Mom wiped her eyes.

“Your father would be so proud,” she whispered as she passed me a plate. “And he’d complain about the frosting ratio.”

“He’d say there’s not enough,” I said.

“There’s never enough frosting,” she replied.

For a moment, the ache in my chest softened.

Then, in the kitchen, I heard a crash.

A real one.

Not dramatic enough to silence the room, but loud enough to make me flinch.

“Relax,” Liam said. “Probably just someone dropping a fork.”

Tessa walked in from the kitchen, wide-eyed.

“Uh,” she said. “Em? You might want to see this.”

My stomach dropped.

I handed the cake server to Liam and followed her.

In the kitchen, the top cabinet to the right of the stove had come partially off its hinge. The door hung crooked, one screw sheared clean. On the counter below, shards of ceramic lay scattered around a puddle of sauce and pasta.

My favorite red serving bowl lay in pieces.
The one my dad had bought me for my twenty-fifth birthday.

“Oh,” I said.

“That cabinet’s been loose for ages,” Tessa said. “You knew that, right?”

“I… yeah,” I said faintly. “I kept meaning to fix it.”

“Well, it fixed itself,” Liam said, stepping in behind us. “By committing cabinet un-alive.”

Mom smacked his arm. “Don’t joke around sharp edges.”

I stared at the broken bowl, my heart pounding.

Red.
My dad.
Broken.

“It’s just a bowl,” I told myself.

“You okay?” Tessa asked quietly.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just startled.”

We cleaned it up. It was annoying, but not catastrophic. No one was hurt. The food had already been mostly served, so the mess was just an extra inconvenience.

Half an hour later, another small thing.

One of the strings of lights in the living room blew out with a pop and a puff of the faintest burnt smell.

“Old wiring,” my neighbor Mark said, unplugging it. “These cheap things never last.”

An hour after that, someone spilled a full drink on the chair where my garment bag had been hanging earlier. If I hadn’t moved the dress to my closet, it would have been soaked.

They were small things. Everyday annoyances.

Nothing life-ending. Nothing dramatic.

But they began to stack in my mind.

Loose cabinet. Sparks. Spills. Red things breaking.

By eleven, my nerves were buzzing again.

I slipped into my bedroom for a moment of quiet, closing the door behind me.

The red dress hung in the closet. I opened the door and looked at it, at the soft fold of the fabric, the way it caught the light.

“You’re causing me a ridiculous amount of trouble for something inanimate,” I informed it.

It didn’t respond. Obviously.

“Did you think not wearing it would protect me from… what?” I asked the air. “Running mascara? Bad luck? An inefficient frosting ratio?”

Somewhere between grief and frustration, my chest tightened.

“This is stupid,” I muttered. “I’m arguing with a dress. And a dead man who lives in my head.”

The bedroom door opened behind me.

“Whoa,” Liam said, stopping short. “I was looking for the bathroom, but this is… intense.”

I wiped my eyes quickly and turned around. “There’s literally a sign on the bathroom door.”

“I missed it,” he said, leaning on the frame. “Also, I saw you escape in here and thought you might need rescuing from your own party.”

“I’m okay,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. You look very okay, having a staring contest with a hanger.”

I sighed. “I feel ridiculous,” I admitted. “I spent all day worrying about something that hasn’t happened. I changed my outfit. I let the dream dictate my choices. And nothing major went wrong.”

“That’s a good thing,” he pointed out. “If you played it safe and nothing bad happened, it’s not proof you were wrong. It’s proof you didn’t roll the dice.”

“Or proof there was nothing to roll them on,” I said. “Maybe it was just grief. Maybe Dad’s voice in my head is just… my voice, dressed up like him.”

“Probably,” he said. “That’s how it usually works.”

I sank onto the edge of the bed.

“I’m so tired of still living like I have to get his approval,” I said quietly. “Like he’s going to walk in and grade my choices. He’s not here. He’s not the one who has to live with the consequences of what I wear, or who I date, or where I go. I am. And yet a dream from him still has this much power.”

“That’s not all him,” Liam said. “Some of that is Mom. Some of that is you. Some of that is, you know, the whole ‘he died and it broke us’ thing.”

“You’re very poetic for a guy in a pizza hoodie,” I said.

He shrugged. “I contain multitudes. Borrowed that line from Tessa.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“You know,” he said. “If you want to change into it now, you could. Make a point. Wear it for the last hour. Everyone’s drunk enough they won’t be confused.”

I looked at the dress. The red glowed in the dim closet light.

The idea was tempting. Put it on. Walk back out. Prove to myself I wasn’t under ghostly rule.

But another feeling rose up too. Not fear. Not superstition.

Strangely enough: respect.

I had promised.
I had said the words.
I had told the man I loved, even if he was just a figment of my dreaming brain, that I would listen.

“All day,” I said slowly, “this hasn’t really been about the dress. It’s been about whose voice I listen to. His or mine.”

“So which one wins?” Liam asked.

“Both,” I said. “I can honor what he asked and still decide, after tonight, that the next dreams don’t get that same control. I can say, ‘Okay, Dad. You get this one. Then I get the rest.’”

He nodded. “That sounded like closure,” he said.

“It sounded like a truce,” I said.

“With him?” he asked.

“With myself,” I replied.

He smiled. “Very thirty-year-old of you.”

I laughed. “So mature.”

We walked back into the living room together. The party had shifted into its late-stage version—smaller clusters of people on the couch, quieter music, half-eaten slices of cake abandoned on plates.

Mom stood near the balcony door, talking to Tessa. When she saw me, her eyes softened.

“You okay?” she mouthed.

I nodded.

She squeezed my hand as I passed.

At midnight, after most of the guests had gone and the remaining ones were arguing about rideshares, Mom hugged me goodbye.

“For what it’s worth,” she whispered in my ear, “I think you did the right thing. Not because of the dream. Because you listened to yourself.”

“I feel like I did both,” I said.

She pulled back to look at me. “Both is okay too,” she said. “Life is rarely either-or.”

After they left, and Tessa had finally gone home with a promise to pick up decorations tomorrow, the apartment fell quiet.

I did the minimal cleanup required to keep my future self from crying in the morning—tossed empty cups, stacked plates, stuck the leftover cake in the fridge.

Then I went back to my bedroom, closed the door, and opened the closet.

The red dress waited.

I reached out and ran my fingers over the fabric, imagining the conversations we might have had if my dad had lived long enough to see me at thirty.

He would have complained that the neckline was too low.
I would have rolled my eyes.
We would have argued.
We would have made up.

Maybe that was what the dream was. My brain giving me the argument we never finished. Letting me say the things I’d swallowed. Letting him be imperfect and protective and frustrating again.

“Okay,” I said out loud. “Here’s the deal.”

I took the dress off the hanger.

“I didn’t wear it today,” I said. “You win that one. Or I win, depending on how we look at it. But I’m not living in fear of red dresses. I’m not calling you before every decision. I’m allowed to listen to my own voice now.”

I folded the dress carefully and laid it across the chair.

“I’m going to wear you on some random Tuesday,” I told it. “To a dinner, or a work thing, or just because. No party, no superstition. Just me choosing. And if anything weird happens, we’ll deal with it like people always do—with complaining and snacks.”

I didn’t expect an answer.

But somehow, the room felt lighter.

I changed into pajamas, crawled into bed, and stared at the ceiling.

“Happy birthday to me,” I whispered.

In the quiet, I thought I heard his voice, faint and dry as ever.

“Happy birthday, kiddo,” it said in the back of my mind. “Don’t forget your vitamins.”

I smiled.
I didn’t cry.

For the first time since the dream, I fell asleep easily.

---

Two weeks later, on a completely ordinary Thursday, I wore the red dress.

Not for a party. Not for a date. Just for me.

I had a late afternoon meeting with my boss and a dinner reservation with Tessa and Liam afterward. As I zipped it up, I felt that same flicker of rebellion—and something else.

Ownership.

On the subway, three strangers complimented it. In the grocery store, a little girl pointed and told her mom, “Look, her dress is like a superhero’s.”

At dinner, Tessa raised her glass.

“To the dress,” she said. “And to choices.”

“To Dad,” Liam added. “For being annoying from beyond and still somehow helping.”

“To me,” I said. “For finally letting all of those voices talk without letting any one of them drown out the others.”

We clinked glasses. We ate too much. We laughed.

Nothing dramatic happened.

No falling light fixtures, no sudden storms, no weird phone calls.

On the way home, my heel caught on a cracked bit of sidewalk and I stumbled. I laughed, caught myself, and kept walking.

Life went on. Imperfect. Unpredictable. Messy.

My father was still gone.
I was still here.
The dress was still red.

And the arguments—about control, about protection, about who I was allowed to be—kept evolving, even without him in the room.

The dream had started a fight, yes. With my mother. With my brother. With myself.

But it had also started something else:

A conversation I hadn’t known how to have.
A line I hadn’t known how to draw.
A new way of loving someone who was no longer living but still very much part of my life.

On some future birthday, maybe I’ll dream of him again. Maybe he’ll have another warning, or a joke, or nothing at all.

If he does, I’ll listen.

And then, I’ll decide.

For me.

THE END