She took off her nightshirt and put on the clothes along with some boots that were too big for her feet. A fake beard was pinned to it and on top was a white cowboy hat. She then reached for a Styrofoam mannequin’s head that was on a shelf in the closet. From her closet, she grabbed a men’s brown leather jacket that she kept on a hanger. She opened one of the lower drawers and pulled out a pair of men’s pants and a dark men’s shirt. She walked over to her dresser, the top of which held a few small glass sculptures of dolphins with iridescent eyes that she had been collecting off and on for more than a decade. But on a lovely morning in May 1991, Peggy Jo, who was then 46 years old, decided to wear something different.
Usually, she liked wearing khaki pants, a simple blouse, and loafers. Then, after her mother was finished eating, Peggy Jo would gently guide her back to her bedroom, prop a pillow behind her head, set a glass of tap water and her romance novel on the side table, and walk back into her own room to get dressed. Peggy Jo, who didn’t like to eat until later in the day, would often smoke a cigarette and drink Pepsi out of a coffee cup. For a few minutes, the two of them would sit at the table, making small talk. She’d wrap a robe around her mother’s shoulders, lead her to the kitchen, fix her cereal, and lay out her pills. Every morning, after waking up and making her bed, always taking the time to smooth out all the wrinkles in the sheets with her hands, she’d walk into her mother’s bedroom. For much of her adult life, she lived with her ailing mother in a small apartment in the Dallas suburbs. Peggy Jo Tallas was, by all accounts, the classic good-hearted Texas woman.