I Sewed White Dresses While He Held The Envelope That Could Save My Mom...

The machine was still warm from running. I kept my foot light on the pedal and let the needle walk slow through the white fabric, because if I stopped completely Mom would hear the quiet and worry. The man in the black suit stood too close to my little table. His shadow fell across my hands.

He reached out like he was going to touch the machine. Not me. The machine.

His right hand hovered over the black arm, over the gold decal and the metal rose plate by the needle. I saw the small tattoo on the side of his hand first, dark from old ink, and the wristwatch catching the daylight from the kitchen window. His fingers shook. Just a little. Then he pulled back fast and put his hand in his pocket.

I stopped the needle with the fabric still under it. I didn't want him bumping it.

"You know this machine," I said.

He looked at the wall instead of me. The plain warm wall with the mark where our clock used to be. "I keep my hands off things that don't belong to me."

"That time before," I said. "At the door. You gave me the envelope."

His jaw moved. He didn't answer right away. I could hear him breathing through his nose, trying to keep it even.

"I remember your watch," I said. "And that mark on your hand. Same suit."

Mom shifted on the bed. I could hear the cover move in the other room. She wasn't asleep. She never really slept when someone else was in the house.

The man glanced toward the bedroom doorway. Then back at the sewing machine. He stared at the rose like it bothered him.

"I've been to this house before," he said. His voice was low. "I left something at the door. I didn't come inside."

I waited. The needle glinted. My bandaged fingers ached under the gauze where the needle had caught me that morning.

"Why didn't you come in?" I asked.

"Because I was told not to," he said.

That sounded like my line back to him. Mom needs medicine. Mom said you can't see her. Only now it was coming from him, and it didn't sound restrained. It sounded tired.

From the bedroom, Mom spoke. Her voice was thin but clear enough to carry through the open door.

"Lily," she said. "He knows who sent him."

The man went still. He didn't turn his head. His eyes cut toward the doorway.

Mom breathed, then added, "Don't you?"

He swallowed. I saw his throat move. He took his hand out of his pocket and then put it behind his back, like he didn't trust it out in the open near the rose plate.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

I looked between his face and the machine. My stomach felt tight. I wanted to ask who sent him. I wanted to ask what was in the brown envelope still sitting sealed by the refrigerator. But Mom had told me not to open it without her, and something in the way he wouldn't say a name told me I wasn't supposed to ask yet.

"Did you see the machine that time?" I asked. "From the door?"

He shook his head once. "I only saw the door. And your hand."

He looked down at my right hand then, at the bandages on my fingers. His eyes stayed there a second too long. I curled my fingers under, hiding the stained gauze.

"The rose," he said, almost to himself. "I didn't expect to see it again here."

My chest went cold. Again. Here.

I wanted to lift the white fabric and show him what I kept underneath, what Mom had told me to show him. But my hands wouldn't move. Not yet. Because if he knew the machine, if someone sent him who knew the machine, then this wasn't just a delivery anymore.

Mom coughed softly from the bed. The man took a half step back from my table, giving me air again. His hand was steady now, but he kept it away from the machine.