Most days, Margaux’s company was a flickering television and, when the weather was generous, a stray cat that liked to perch on her kitchen windowsill and blink slowly at the world.
For forty years, she had been a seamstress. She’d hemmed pants, repaired zippers, patched elbows, and adjusted wedding dresses for women who trembled with excitement. She’d worked at a dry cleaner’s, then took on extra jobs at home to keep the bills from piling up too high. Even now, with joints that complained and fingers that stiffened in the cold, her hands still remembered what to do. Needle. Thread. Fold. Pin. Stitch. The rhythm of it calmed her more than any medicine ever had.
