17. Beckett #2
She just stood there holding the folder I'd given her and looking at me like she was waiting for me to understand something I couldn't see yet.
I swallowed.
"How long have you known?"
"Since Winston told me."
"And you didn't say anything."
"No."
"Why not?"
She looked down at the folder.
"Because it wouldn't have changed anything," she said. "You didn't know. And you're here anyway."
I didn't know what to say to that.
I swallowed.
"I need to ask you for something," I said.
She went still.
"All right."
"Your mother's coat," I said. "The one you were wearing at the gala. Can I borrow it?"
It was the first thing I'd asked her for in months.
I didn't say what it was for.
She looked at me for a long time.
"What do you need it for?" she asked.
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know if I can do it yet."
She studied my face.
I didn't look away.
"It's in the closet," she said. "Upstairs. Second door on the left."
"I know where it is."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Bring it back when you're done," she said.
Dorcas Pruitt taught me how to mend it.
The fastest hand on that floor. Thirty-one years in the building. A shoulder that was failing and no patience whatsoever.
I found her in the break room on her lunch and asked her if she had ten minutes.
She looked at the coat.
At me.
"You planning to fix that yourself?"
"Yes."
"You ever mended anything in your life?"
"No."
She took the coat out of my hands and turned it inside out.
Found the seam where the thread had pulled loose.
Ran her finger along it.
"It's a blind stitch," she said. "You're matching the original work. Your mother-in-law sewed this thirty years ago and you're not going to do it better than she did, so don't try. Just close the gap."
She handed it back.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Because it needs to be done."
"Nell could do it in five minutes."
"I know."
She looked at me for a second.
Then nodded.
"Thread the needle," she said. "Small stitches. Don't pull too tight or you'll pucker the fabric. Don't leave it too loose or it won't hold."
I threaded the needle.
Started the stitch.
She watched me for about six inches.
Then she took it back.
"Not like that."
She pulled the thread out and handed me the coat again.
"What did I do wrong?"
"Everything. Your spacing's off. Your tension's too tight. And you're angling the needle wrong."
"Show me."
She took the needle.
Did three stitches.
Her hands moved so fast I almost couldn't see what she was doing.
"Like that," she said. "See?"
I saw.
I tried again.
She made me pull it out after four stitches.
"Closer together."
I did it again.
She made me pull it out.
"Again."
"How many times did you have to do this before you got it right?" I asked.
"Once. I was sixteen. Your wife was fourteen when she learned it. You're forty-four and you've cut a hundred gowns and you can't sew a straight line to save your life."
"I can sew a straight line."
"Not one that matters."
I did it again.
She watched.
Didn't take it back.
"Better," she said.
Not good.
Better.
I kept going.
She didn't stop me.
When I finished, she took the coat and turned it right side out.
Looked at the seam.
"That'll hold," she said.
I gave it back to her that night.
She was standing in the kitchen when I came in. She'd made tea and poured two cups and set them on the counter.
I held the coat out. My grandfather's shears were lying on top of it.
She took both.
Set the shears on the counter. Neither of us said anything about them.
Turned the coat over in her hands.
I watched her find the repair.
Her fingers stopped on the seam.
Traced it.
She didn't say anything.
Just kept running her finger over the stitches.
"I couldn't hide it," I said. "And I wouldn't have if I could."
She looked up at me.
"Why not?"
"Because a seam joins two things that were always separate," I said. "A mend is what you do to something that was whole and tore. You can always see where."
Her face didn't change.
But her hands tightened on the fabric.
"Who taught you?" she asked.
"Dorcas."
"She's a good teacher."
"She made me do it four times."
"She made me do a felled seam twenty times when I was fourteen," Nell said. "Four times is generous."
She looked down at the coat again.
At the seam.
"My mother never mended anything in her life," she said. "If it tore, she threw it away. She said mending was admitting you couldn't afford to replace it."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"But she kept this coat for thirty years," Nell said. "And when the thread came loose, she didn't fix it. She just kept wearing it."
She looked up at me.
"I pulled it loose at the gala," she said. "I was standing there listening to a princess tell me my mother's life came to nothing and I couldn't say a word and I found that thread and I pulled it. Just to have something to do with my hands."
Her voice was quiet.
Steady.
"I know," I said.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
I reached for her without thinking.
My hand went to her collar.
The reflex of twenty years.
I stopped halfway.
And looked at her face instead.
She was crying.
Not sobbing.
Just tears running down her face while she stood there holding her mother's coat with the repair showing and looking at me like I'd finally said something she'd been waiting six years to hear.
I didn't move.
Didn't reach for her again.
I'd spent six years with a hand that never once went to the right place.
"Thank you," she said.
Her voice broke on it.
I nodded.
She folded the coat carefully.
Set it on the counter beside the tea.
And then she looked at me again.
"The contract analysis," she said. "I'm not going to action any of it without talking to you first."
"You don't need to talk to me."
"Yes," she said. "I do."
She picked up her tea.
Drank.
Set the cup down.
"Why did you do all of it?" she asked. "The nights on the floor. The lot. The analysis. The coat. Why?"
I looked at her.
"Because it needed doing."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She looked at me for a long time.
"Five days," she said. "That's what I gave you. They're up."
I knew what she was saying.
Tomorrow we talked.
Tomorrow she told me what happened next.
I nodded.
She picked up the coat and left the kitchen.
I stood there alone with my tea and the counter that still smelled like burnt toast from three days ago.
I'd done the one thing that couldn't be bought.
And she hadn't said what happened next.