7. Nell
NELL
It hit me on day six.
Not the heartbreak. That had been there since the fitting room.
This was my body giving out.
I'd been running on adrenaline for two days. Flying back. Walking past Hazel without explaining. Pulling the cot out of storage and setting it up in the office. The mill was the only place in the world that was mine.
Hazel had come in on day five, looked at the cot, looked at me.
"He came by yesterday."
I'd gone still.
"I didn't let him past the door."
I nodded.
"Do you want to know what he said?"
"No."
She stood there for a moment.
"You need to eat something."
"I'm fine."
"You look like hell, Nell."
"I said I'm fine."
"When's the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday."
"What did you have?"
"Coffee."
"Coffee's not food."
"Hazel—"
"I'm bringing you something from the diner. You don't have to eat it. But I'm bringing it."
"I don't want?—"
"I don't care what you want. You want to fall apart, that's your business. But you're going to do it on a full stomach."
She'd turned and walked back out.
Twenty minutes later she'd come back with a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water. Set them on my desk. Walked out.
I'd eaten half the sandwich because she was right.
And then on day six, it just stopped.
The adrenaline. The motion. The part of me that had carried me through the fitting room and the flight and the last two days of pretending I was fine.
I sat down at the desk to look at the shipping schedule, and my hands wouldn't work. They were shaking. I tried to hold the pen and it slipped through my fingers and rolled across the desk and off the edge and hit the floor.
I stared at it.
Then I tried to stand up to get it, and I couldn't. My legs wouldn't hold me.
I sat back down. Gripped the edge of the desk.
I was cold. Not the kind where you put on a sweater. The kind that comes from the inside.
The door opened. Hazel.
"You're still here."
"Just finishing up."
She looked at me. Looked at the pen on the floor.
"You all right?"
"Fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Just tired."
She walked over. Picked up the pen. Set it on the desk.
"When's the last time you slept?"
"Last night."
"For how long?"
"A few hours."
"Nell."
"I'm fine, Hazel."
She stood there for a moment. Then she walked out.
I wrapped my arms around myself and waited for whatever this was to pass.
It didn't.
My teeth started chattering. My hands kept shaking.
I tried to stand, and my knees gave out. I had to grab the desk to keep from falling.
So I sat on the floor instead.
The office was quiet. It was after nine. The floor had gone home.
I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them and pressed my back against the desk.
Long enough that I finally reached for the things I'd brought.
Not much. My tools. My mother's coat. An old canvas work jacket of his from before the money.
I reached for the tool roll and opened it.
The scissors were there. The marking chalk. The measuring tape.
The shears weren't.
I went still.
Then I checked again. Ran my hand over the empty slot where they should have been. Unrolled the whole thing and laid it flat on the floor.
They weren't there.
His grandfather's shears. The wedding gift. The ones that lived in my workroom, in the locked drawer of my cutting table.
I stood up.
My legs were working again. The adrenaline, probably.
The door had been standing open when I came back. I kept it locked. Always.
But Maris had the emergency key.
He would have called her. From New York. From a thousand miles away.
He would have told her what he needed and where to find it, and she would have unlocked that door and walked into that room and taken the shears off the table.
She would have walked right past the shirt on the dress form. The one I'd been making for him. The one that had been sitting there half-finished for six months.
And she'd brought him the shears anyway.
From a thousand miles away, he'd reached into the one room I ever locked and taken the only thing he'd ever given me that meant anything.
And I could guess exactly what he wanted them for.
That landed.
Cold and clean and sharp.
He'd wanted the shears because he was making something. Something important enough to send someone into my house to get them. Something for her.
He'd taken them before I left the ring. Before I got on the plane.
He hadn't known I was coming.
He'd just needed the shears, and he'd sent for them, and Maris had opened that door and walked past six years of waiting and brought them to him.
And he'd never thought to ask why the door was locked.
Or what I might have been working on.
Or whether I'd mind.
I took a breath. Let it out.
The office door opened.
Hazel stood there with her coat on.
"I'm heading out. You need anything before I go?"
"No."
She looked at me. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Nell."
I couldn't say it. Not yet. Not out loud.
"The shears are gone."
She frowned. "What shears?"
"His grandfather's. The ones from my workroom."
"Maybe you left them somewhere."
"I didn't leave them. He took them."
"How would he?—"
"Maris has the emergency key. He would have called her from New York. Told her what he needed."
Hazel's face went tight.
"She walked into my locked room. Walked past everything in there. And brought them to him."
"Jesus."
"He needed them for something. Something he couldn't wait for."
Hazel didn't say anything.
"Something for her."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do. The timing fits. He called for them before I left. Before I got on the plane. He was already making something for her."
"Maybe it wasn't?—"
"It was. You know it was."
Hazel was quiet for a moment.
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing."
"Nell—"
"What am I supposed to do? Call him and ask for them back? Tell him I mind?"
"You could?—"
"He didn't ask. He didn't think to ask. Because it didn't occur to him that I'd care."
My voice cracked.
"Or maybe it did occur to him. And he did it anyway."
Hazel stood there for a long moment. Then she took her coat off. Hung it on the hook by the door.
"What are you doing?"
"Staying."
"You don't have to?—"
"I'm staying."
She walked back out onto the floor.
I went back into the office and closed the door.
I was still cold.
I looked at the jacket on the floor.
Hazel knocked on the doorframe.
"You need anything?"
"No."
"I'm heading out in a minute. Last chance."
"I'm fine."
She looked at the jacket.
"That his?"
"Yes."
"From when?"
"Before."
She was quiet for a moment. "You want me to take it?"
"What?"
"Put it somewhere you won't see it. Storage. Dumpster. Whatever you want."
"No."
"Nell—"
"I said no."
She stood there. Then she nodded.
"I'll be on the floor if you need me."
She walked out.
I pulled the jacket toward me. Shook it out. Put it on.
It smelled like him.
Not cologne. Not the version of him that stepped out of town cars in tailored suits.
This was older.
Soap and cotton and sizing. The smell of him before the money. Before the shows and the glass house.
The smell of the man who used to fall asleep on my couch. Who'd brought me coffee because he knew I worked late. Who'd sat at my mother's table and listened.
That man.
The one I'd fallen in love with.
The one who didn't exist anymore.
It took my legs out from under me.
I sat down hard on the floor.
And then I cried.
The ugly kind. The kind that comes from your whole body.
Because I didn't want out.
I wanted him.
Not the house. Not the money. Him.
I wanted him to walk through that door and look at me the way he used to. I wanted him to say my name like it meant something.
I wanted him to see me.
And I hated that I wanted it.
I wasn't grieving the marriage.
I was grieving him.
The man in the jacket. The man who used to look at me like I was the only thing in the room.
And I was furious about it.
Furious that six years of waiting had ended with me on a mill floor, crying into my knees.
Furious that I still loved him.
I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough that the crying stopped.
Long enough that I finally stood up and washed my face in the bathroom.
The mirror was small. My eyes were swollen.
I splashed cold water on my face.
I went back into the office.
The jacket was still on the floor. I picked it up. Folded it. Put it on the shelf in the closet.
Didn't look at it again.
Then I sat down at the desk and took out a pen and a pad of paper.
My hands were steady now.
I wrote three lines.
No calls from Crowe.
No deliveries.
Anything with his name goes back.
I tore the page off. Folded it.
Hazel was still out on the floor. I could see her through the office window, checking the machines before she left.
I walked out.
"Hazel."
She turned.
I handed her the note.
She unfolded it. Read it. Looked at me.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"He's going to push."
"Let him."
"Winston might show up."
"Tell him I'm not here."
"And if he doesn't believe me?"
"Tell him I don't care."
She folded the note back up. Put it in her pocket.
"I'll tell the floor in the morning."
"Thank you."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"You're not hiding from him."
"No."
"Good. Don't start."
She walked out.
Then I walked out onto the floor.
It was empty. The machines were off. The overhead lights dimmed to the safety level.
My mother had walked this floor for thirty-one years. And when she died, they hadn't even put her name on anything. Just a line in the personnel records.
I'd bought the building with the money from selling her house. Renamed it for her.
I stopped at the far end, where the failed lot was sitting in bins.
Two hundred blankets. Binding coming loose after the third wash instead of holding to two hundred.
We'd caught it in quality control. But we still didn't know why.
I pulled the first blanket out. Carried it to the nearest cutting table. Spread it out.
Found the place where the binding had pulled loose.
Then I sat down and picked up the seam ripper and started unpicking.
I didn't explain to myself why I needed to know.
I just needed to know.
I worked through the first blanket. Unpicked the entire binding. Laid the pieces out.
The thread was fine. The binding was fine. The stitching pattern was fine.