This message is in my phone. My mother’s response — *Of course. I’ll be there with her* — is also in my phone. These are facts. The authorization I gave was viewing only. The authorization specifically said ‘don’t let her try it on.’ The authorization specified that the purpose was for Elise to figure out her own direction.
When my mother told Elise I had agreed to let her use the dress, she was making a decision to translate my authorization into a different authorization that I had not given. That translation required her to either convince herself that she had my agreement or to proceed knowing she did not. I don’t know which of those is true. Both are bad, in different ways. I have not asked her which it was, because I’m not sure the answer would help me, and I am not trying to construct a complete prosecution. I am trying to understand what happened and move forward.
What I have concluded is this: my mother told herself a version of the story in which her judgment about what I would eventually agree to was equivalent to my actual agreement. She decided in advance what the outcome of asking me would be, and skipped the asking. This is not the same as lying, exactly. It is also not the same as truth.
## The Pattern Notes
I still have the patterns. Four complete muslin versions plus the final pattern, all labeled and stored flat in a portfolio case. Each muslin is folded and bagged with a note in my handwriting: date, what changed, what worked, what the next iteration would address.