Anna closed her computer and went to dress, pulling on holey jeans, a sweatshirt, and a scuffed pair of brown leather work boots. She took her second cup of coffee to her sewing studio. It was her refuge in times of stress, and this morning, she was stressed. Besides, it needed a deep cleaning, and cleaning always helped organize her brain.
She unlocked the wide door and left it open to the rare autumn sun. Gary had customized the space once her business became more of a year-round source of income. He’d made two tables, a waist high one for laying out and cutting wide bolts of fabric and the other for sewing and finishing work. Shelves under both tables and against the long wall opposite the door held fabrics, patterns, boxes of threads, and other tools of her trade.
Anna collected errant scraps of fabric as she circled the room, putting larger pieces in one bin and unusable bits in the trash. Sewing machine bobbins and spools of thread showed up alongside giant dust bunnies— all the other things that had fallen off the tables during the busier summer months when visiting boaters needed sails repaired or gear replaced—when she swept under the tables.
Two and a half hours passed without notice as she swept, mopped, and dusted. She ran her hands over the tops of both tables, considered sanding and refinishing them. Better to check the long-term weather report first. Too much seasonal rain and the tables would take forever to dry.
She rested the front of her body against the cutting table, her elbows on a folded piece of silk velvet bought years ago on a whim. Through the door, her new neighbor came in and out of view, carrying furniture and odd bits of household items as though he was readying for a yard sale. She fingered the raw edge of the plush fabric cushioning her forearms and wondered what Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome was planning to do with the MacMasters’ belongings.
Fidgety fingers and a restless brain cycled her back to Daniel. In the short span of forty-eight hours, she’d gone from bemoaning her age to fantasizing about rekindling a relationship from thirty years ago.
The sudden shift had her clinging to the gunwales of her life’s rocking boat, wishing she packed an emergency set of oars or paid attention to warnings of tumultuous seas ahead. Letting go of the velvet, she rested her forehead in her palms, rounding her spine as one deep breath after another shuddered through her body.
Anna missed the life she and Gary created together. She missed the sense of being known, seen, and understood. The framework of their marriage had enfolded her in a sense of security and purpose twenty-four hours a day, twelve months a year, for close to twenty years. With her husband’s death, the mortise and tenon holding her days together loosened. Her life came crashing down, and the stability she’d assumed would always be there dissipated.
She groped for her work stool, her knees buckling under the weight of the unexpected upwelling of grief. The words in Daniel’s email promised nothing.
Nothing.
But reading them reminded her of all she wanted to be at that age, all she wanted to do before marriage and children had steered her life in another direction. Daniel knew her when she was on her way to becoming an artist. She’d abandoned that road a long time ago.
She wiped her face with her hands, wiped her hands on her jeans, and shook open the length of velvet. With the pressure on her heart eased, she wheeled her dressmaker’s dummy to one of the windows, draped the velvet over the form, and took photographs to send to Gigi.
“I need a dress,” she texted. “Think you can help?”
Hunger finally drove Anna back inside the house. She fixed herself lunch and was back at her desk, fully intending to focus on work-related emails and orders and not hold her breath for Daniel’s next email, when Gigi called.
“Mom, where’d you get the fabric?”
“New York, I think. You like it?”
“It’s gorgeous,” she effused. “When do you want to come to the shop?”
Anna checked her date book. “How does Thursday look?”
“Let me ask Neena.”
The muffled sound of receding footsteps gave Anna a moment to ponder the starkly empty spaces of the calendar she’d opened.
“Mom, we’re completely booked for this week, but how about next Tuesday? Can you meet us here by noon? We could have lunch after, and you can stay with me if you don’t want to hassle with the ferry schedule.”
“Perfect. Anything you want me to bring from home?”
“Just you,” Gigi said, “and the velvet. Oh, and if you want to make one of your famous apple crumbles, we won’t turn it down.”
Anna ended the call and left her phone on the counter. Between composing the email to Daniel, waiting for a reply, a cleaning fit, a crying jag, and talking to Gigi, she’d forgotten about leaving the house in time to attend a talk at the library. She was just as happy to stay home.
Home had leftover birthday cake.
She reached into the back of the fridge for the last slice, jostling a couple of loose lemons on the same shelf. She managed to grab the one heading for the pit of despair underneath the refrigerator with her free hand without dropping the plate of cake. Her thumbnail punctured the fruit, sending a fine spray of lemon oil to commingle with the scent of chocolate as her butt landed on the kitchen floor.
Daniel.
He liked curls of lemon peel in his espresso, and he’d comment on her sweet tooth every time she ordered a frothy café mocha. She inhaled the tendrils of memory
