I shake the folds from my daughter’s faded blue dress and press out the wrinkles. The iron sighs, and fragile wisps of steam curl around my arms, fade and disappear before my eyes. Fingering the worn white-lace fringe, I flip it and smooth it flat. Each extra touch is my choice, yet I have no control over the whole.

I spread the full skirt and examine the seams. My daughter Mary danced and twirled in it like Henrietta Hippo, her favorite character from The New Zoo Review. As I prepare to give her outgrown “Henrietta dress” to a child in need, she sobs in her bedroom.

My five-year-old niece peeks over the ironing board. Her round eyes have sunken back, yielding to dark circles marring the thin skin beneath them. Her shoulders sag.

“It’s time to go, Annie,” I say. “Let’s get you dressed nice for your grandma.”

Annie’s chin juts forward. “Don’t want Mary’s dress.”

I squat to grip her cold hand in mine and look her in the eye. “It’s all right, baby. Mary knows the dress doesn’t fit.”

I swallow my sob. “She’s resting, pumpkin.” I cannot say that her mother is in the hospital dying of stage-four lung cancer or that she wanted to spare Annie the sight of death. The truth is cruel, but so is what Annie must be thinking. What kind of mother would not say goodbye? I feel the abandonment in her sigh. “Remember what Mommy told you?”

I swallow my sob. “She’s resting, pumpkin.” I cannot say that her mother is in the hospital dying of stage-four lung cancer or that she wanted to spare Annie the sight of death. The truth is cruel, but so is what Annie must be thinking. What kind of mother would not say goodbye? I feel the abandonment in her sigh. “Remember what Mommy told you?”

Annie nods but does not smile. “Mee-maw can’t wait to see me.”

My sister has promised Annie a wonderful time with people who love her and asked her to behave until she sees her. But she won’t see her again. Annie will live with her paternal grandparents, an elderly couple resentful of the burden, as the law requires.

“I want to stay with you,” she whispers.

Unable to say I want that too, I rise and return to the one thing I can change: the dress.

“Can I say ‘bye to Mary?”

I reach down and brush unruly curls from her eyes. “Mary’s very sad right now.”

Annie bobs her head, her steady gaze telling me she knows Mary cries over the dress. I help her change into the only thing we have that fits her, the rag my daughter refused to offer.

Annie hands me her teddy bear. “Mary can have Mr. Buttons.”

Mary has four bears of her own. I press the under-stuffed toy against Annie’s chest. “No, now, you keep this one. Mama got him for you.”

She glances out the window. A cold winter light plays over her fresh skin, and a kind of frigid wisdom settles on her features. She ages before my eyes. “I want Mommy.”

“I know,” I croak. “Let’s brush your hair.”

She is silent while I untangle her thick curls. I know what she’s facing, having lost my own mother young. At her age, I dragged a cotton sack, picking from the sharp boles all day. Even when they cut my hands, I knew better than to cry. At night, I peeled potatoes and ground meal for cornbread. I didn’t play. I worked. Annie has my same sad eyes, the raised chin.

I slide Annie’s second-hand coat over her shoulders and hold out her tattered mittens. We hug but she doesn’t grip back. Stepping outside into the misty cold, hand-in-hand, we march to the gate where the social worker waits, her elbows propped on the fence and lips pursed in a fiery circle.

Once she has Annie, the dour-faced woman touches my arm. “This is for the best, you know. The mother can’t care for her.”

“I can.”

“The grandparents are next of kin.” She leads Annie to her car, turns, flashes a forced smile and flaps her hand at me.

Mimicking the gesture with one hand, Annie cuddles Mr. Buttons close with the other. I blow her a kiss. It is unlikely she will remember any of us. She’s only five, after all.

As the car pulls away, I huddle on the back stoop and stare into a sheet of whipping snowflakes. Smoke from the cigarette I can’t even puff swirls around me. Why couldn’t my own child share one old dress? Her life has been free of uncertainty and pain.

My husband leans out the screen door and clears his throat. “Hon? Mary is asking for you.”

“We’ve given her everything, but have we done her any favors?”

“Come on now. We’ve done our best.”

No longer can I discern my smoke from snow. “Have we done what’s best for her, or us?”

He looks surprised, shrugs. “For both, I hope. She’s just a child. She’s grieving the same loss we are in her own way.”

“I know.” My anger and grief are snuffed into a silent pit of gray as my flame fizzles out. I close my eyes and rise to go to her, realizing he’s right. She doesn’t know how to feel about losing her cousin. After all, she’s only five.