I was tired all the time.
Legal fees ate through my savings. Some clients canceled because they did not want “drama” attached to their wedding alterations. Other people called pretending to book appointments just so they could ask questions. Noah started wetting the bed. He asked why Dad had another name. He asked if people could stop being your family. He asked whether lying was contagious.
I answered as carefully as I could.
At night, after he slept, I sewed.
I sewed because rent did not care that I had been betrayed.
I sewed because grief becomes dangerous if the hands have nothing to do.
I sewed because each seam was a small refusal to fall apart.
One afternoon, a woman named Mrs. Alvarez came in for a mother-of-the-bride alteration. She was seventy, sharp-eyed, and not the kind of woman who pretended not to know things.
After trying on her dress, she stood before the mirror and said, “You are the woman from Charleston.”
My stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
She met my eyes in the mirror.
“Good.”
I blinked.
She turned around.
“My first husband had a second family in Tampa. I found out because his mistress mailed me a Christmas card by mistake. I did not walk into a church. I wish I had.”
