Chapter 2 - Show Him What's Underneath
I didn't move when Mom spoke. I could feel my fingers still on the fabric and the needle still down in it.
He was standing in the bedroom doorway with his back half to me, his suit dark against the white doorframe. I could see Mom past his shoulder, lying on her side under the light cover, her dark hair flat against the pillow. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at me. Her eyes were open but slow, like it took work to keep them that way.
"Lily, show him gone what's hidden underneath," she said. Weak, low. It barely carried across the wood floor.
My right hand tightened on the white fabric. The bandage on my fingers caught on the edge and pulled. I felt the sting under the tape where the needle had gone in that morning. I didn't lift the fabric yet. I just held it.
The man turned his head. First toward Mom, then toward me. He looked between us. His mouth was a straight line, serious the way it had been at the front door, but his eyes were wider now. He didn't step into the bedroom. He didn't step back toward the kitchen either. He stayed in the doorway, one hand at his side. I saw the wristwatch catch the daylight and the small tattoo on his hand when his fingers flexed.
I looked down at the sewing machine. The black arm with the gold detailing, the little metal rose plate by the needle. The white fabric ran under it in a folded layer. What was underneath wasn't finished. Mom knew that. I had told her I wouldn't show anybody until the stitching held.
"Mom," I said. It came out quiet. I didn't finish it because I didn't know how to say don't make me in front of him.
She blinked once. She didn't repeat herself. She just kept watching me, breathing shallow under the cover. The refrigerator hummed from the kitchen behind me. Daylight came in through the window and laid a pale square across the floorboards between my chair and his shoes.
He cleared his throat. "You don't have to—" he started, then stopped. His voice sounded strange in our house. Too deep. He glanced down at me again, at my hands.
I shifted in my chair. The wood creaked. I slid my left hand under the edge of the white fabric where it draped over the side of the machine table. My bandaged fingers stayed on top, holding it steady so it wouldn't slip and jam. Slowly I lifted the corner, just an inch, just enough that the underside showed a shadow of stitches and a second layer bunched beneath.
I didn't pull it free. I didn't spread it out. I kept my thumb pressed down so he couldn't see the shape of it, only that something was there, sewn under and kept out of light.
His eyes dropped to my hands. He saw the lifted edge. He leaned forward a fraction, like his body moved before he told it to, and then he caught himself. He stepped back. His heel hit the doorframe with a soft thud. The serious look on his face cracked — his brows pulled up, his jaw loosened. He stared at the white fabric, at my bandaged fingers holding it, then back at Mom in the bed.
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I let the corner fall back down. It settled over the machine with a soft whisper. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my taped fingertips.
Nobody spoke. Mom's breathing continued, thin and even. The man stayed in the doorway, not leaving, not coming closer, his hands now both at his sides. I put both my hands flat on the white fabric to stop them from shaking, and I waited to see what he would do next.
