Chapter 12 - Underneath the White Dress
I locked the bedroom door with both hands and leaned my back against it until the knock outside faded down the walk. The wood was warm from the sun through the kitchen window. My heart was still beating in my throat.
Mom didn't move on the bed. She watched me. Her eyes went to the machine, then to him.
"Now," she said. "Safe."
I nodded. My bandaged fingers were shaking, so I tucked them under my palms for a second to make them stop.
The man in the black suit hadn't moved from the bedroom doorway. His jacket was dusty at the shoulder from where he'd leaned against the frame. He checked his watch without thinking, then stopped himself and put his hand down.
I pulled my stool closer to the sewing machine and lifted the white dress from under the needle. The outer was done enough to hold its shape. I'd finished the side seam that morning and pressed it flat with my hand. It looked plain in the daylight, just white cotton for a church choir order Mrs. Alan had dropped off.
Mom coughed into her sleeve. "Lift it," she said. "Show him."
I laid the dress across my lap and turned it inside out. The inside didn't match the outside. The lining was gray and soft from washing, cut from something older. I could feel the man watching my hands.
"It's Mama's," I said before he could ask. I ran my thumb along the seam where I'd joined the new white to the old gray. "Her summer dress. She let me cut it."
He stepped closer. I heard his shoes on the wood floor. He didn't reach out. He just looked.
Along the bottom of that old lining, Mom had taught me to sew a wide hidden hem. Not for looks. For a pocket. I'd stitched it shut with long loose stitches so it could be opened fast. My right hand throbbed where the tape pulled, but I picked at the thread with my nail until it gave.
"Careful," Mom said from the bed.
I folded back the white outer layer all the way and pulled out what was underneath. First the mended lining piece itself, where Mom had patched a tear with tiny stitches I still couldn't make as neat. Then the papers we'd kept flat between the layers so they wouldn't wrinkle.
There were three of them. A yellowed store ticket for sewing work with Mom's first name written in pencil and the amount paid. A pharmacy receipt with the date circled. And a folded clinic paper with Mom's name typed across the top and a stamp at the bottom.
I spread them on top of the white fabric on the machine table. The daylight from the doorway made the pencil marks look darker.
The man stared down at them. His serious face changed. He didn't look shocked like before. He looked like he recognized something and didn't want to.
He pointed at the store ticket, not touching it. "This is piecework," he said quietly. "From the dry cleaner's on Highway 9."
Mom shifted under the light cover. "Kept every one," she said. "Show I worked."
Her voice was thin. She stopped to breathe. "Hid it there," she said. "Safe from mess."
I understood then why she'd told me to sew the lining in instead of using new material from the bag. Anyone looking in the front room would just see a white choir dress. No one would lift it and look underneath unless Mom told them to. She'd kept proof and kept it clean at the same time.
"Why papers under a dress?" I asked her. My voice sounded small in the bedroom doorway.
Mom looked at me, then at him. "If I get worse," she said. "You have it." She swallowed. "No one can say we lied."
The man took off his watch and slipped it into his pocket, like his wrist felt too tight. His small hand tattoo showed when he rubbed his palm on his pants. He looked from the papers to the mended patch Mom had sewn herself.
"You did this to keep working," he said. It wasn't a question.
Mom gave a short nod against the pillow. Pride crossed her face, even tired as she was. "My work," she said. "My girl kept it."
I pressed my hand flat over the lining. The old gray cotton was soft under my bandaged fingers. Underneath my palm I could feel the folded edge where the papers had been, still warm from being hidden. I realized Mom hadn't just protected the papers. She'd protected the work itself, the proof that she could sew and pay and take care of us even from bed.
May you like
The man didn't pick anything up. He stood there looking down at the white dress with its gray heart showing, and for once he didn't try to take charge. The sealed brown envelope stayed where I'd left it under the fabric pile by the machine, untouched.
Mom closed her eyes for a rest, and the room went quiet except for the tick of the cooling machine and our breathing.
