“Can I look, Mama?”
“Come on, Owen—just don’t say anything until Merritt opens her eyes.”
Owen jumped up and down behind them. “Tell me when and I’ll let Merritt know when she can open them.”
Loralee led them to the foyer, where the sewing machine sat on the table, looking as out of place on the fancy antique as a potbellied pig sitting in first class. She stood behind Merritt and took her shoulders to move her in the right position. “Okay, Owen. Go ahead.”
“Open your eyes,” he commanded.
Merritt’s eyes opened and she stared at the sewing machine without saying a single word.
“It’s a sewing machine,” Loralee explained, thinking that maybe it had been a long time since Merritt had seen one.
“I know what it is,” she said, her eyes focused on the machine. “I just . . .” She faced Loralee. “Why is it here?”
“There was a photo of you and your mama, and you were making something with the sewing machine. I thought . . .” She stopped, alarmed at the wetness in Merritt’s eyes and wondering whether she’d made a very big mistake.
With clipped and very deliberate words, Merritt said, “It was her mother’s sewing machine.” A slow smile softened her face. “My mother did a little bit of sewing, but my grandmother was really good with it—she could do monograms that looked like they were hand-stitched. She could make anything, really—I guess that’s where I got the interest. It always amazed me, because she couldn’t move two fingers of her right hand—nerve damage, she said. But she managed pretty well.” Merritt placed her palm on top of the sewing machine very lightly, as if she were petting a dog that might bite her.
“After my mother died, my grandmother moved near us and would take care of me when my father had to fly. And then one day . . .” She turned to Loralee, her eyes distant. “I can’t believe I’m remembering this now—I haven’t thought about it for years.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “One day she got a package with a letter, and inside the package was a handkerchief with a monogram on it—and it looked just like one she’d made. She threw it all away, and then packed up her sewing machine and I never saw it again. And we never made anything together after that.”
“What did the letter say?”
Merritt shook her head. “I have no idea. She tore it up into little pieces and then shoved it back into the package with the handkerchief. She was crying—something I’d never seen her do before. She’d always told me that crying was only for weak-willed people, and I knew never to bring it up—so I didn’t. Then I forgot about it. Until now.”
Loralee shifted on her bare feet, not sure what to do. “Like I said, if you don’t want it I’m sure I can sell it.”
Merritt’s attention returned to the sewing machine, but she didn’t touch it again, like a girl being offered a large diamond ring but not sure whether she wanted to get married. “Why did you get it for me?” she asked quietly.
Loralee shrugged, recalling what she’d written in her journal on the first day she’d met Merritt, looking like she’d been licking the same wound for years so that it never got better. Turning the page is always better than rereading the same page over and over. “Your daddy used to tell me how creative you were, how you could make anything, but that you’d stopped. I figured now might be a good time to rediscover something you used to love.”
Merritt just stared at her, which made Loralee nervous. And when she got nervous, she talked. “Since you’re starting your life over, sort of. You’re in a new town and a new house, with new people in your life. And you even have a new job. Maybe now you can forget about why you stopped and find the joy again that it used to bring you.”
“Joy?” Merritt repeated like she’d never heard the word before.
“Like at Christmas, right, Mama?” Owen asked as he bent down to examine the working mechanisms of the machine. “It means happiness,” he said to Merritt. “Like when I make something new with my LEGOs.”
“You must think I’m pretty pathetic,” Merritt said softly.
“Oh, no. Not at all. I just saw this sewing machine. . . .”
Merritt picked up the machine, and Loralee held her breath, expecting her to drop it on the floor. She could already see the bobbin rolling across the wood floor, unspooling the thread like a long, thin red tear.
“I’m going to set this up on the table in front of the window in the dining room overlooking the garden. You get the morning sun there.” Merritt was halfway to the dining room when she stopped. “Thank you,” she said. She waited, as if she wanted to say more, then seemed to change her mind and continued carrying the sewing machine to the back of the house.