But Web only nodded his head and looked deeply into her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “It must mean a lot to you.”
So Mary told him, and he smiled a big smile underneath that bushy beard, his dark eyes twinkling in the last hints of day. “There is nothing more sacred than sewing,” he said. “It is like the art of a lumberman. Both provide shelter for a family. Both require hard labor and long hours. Both, in the end, are works of art.”
Two weeks later, Web returned for dinner, and they again went for a walk. Under the same pine boughs, Web stopped and pulled a small box out of his pocket.
“Open it!” he said.
Mary lifted the lid, and sitting atop a little velvet throne, was a charm of a four-leaf clover. “Luck of the Irish,” he smiled. “It was my mom’s. She sent it to me years ago, after I came to America. She said this charm is for luck in love and life.”
He hesitated. “I think I have finally found luck in love and life.”
Web softly pulled Mary’s wrist into the summer air and added the charm next to the sewing machine.
And then with only the pines and the peepers as witnesses, Web leaned in and kissed Mary’s lips. For a big man, the kiss was as tender and gentle as a soft rain. Mary collapsed into his arms. When Mary turned to walk home, she saw the curtain in the picture window move. Her aunt and uncle had been secretly watching.
Three months later, Mary was married. They moved into a little log cabin Web had built for his bride on a little lake—Lost Land Lake—in the woods outside of Scoops, Michigan.
Web set Mary’s sewing machine up in the front window of the new log cabin, which was built with pine logs Web had felled and split, cured and carved. White mortar held the logs in place, and it was filled with windows.
“You can work here and always have a view of Lost Land,” Web said.
The autumn vista inspired Mary, and—though the newlyweds had little money—she journeyed to the local feed store and picked out pretty patterned feed sacks, and to fabric shops where she fished out scraps, remains, and leftover material. Mary began to make quilts and curtains for the cabin. She began to make a name for herself in town, sewing for the locals. And when Mary found out she was pregnant a few months later, she ordered layette set patterns from McCall’s and—inspired by the world outside her cabin window—sewed a yellow baby blanket, with intricate designs of floating swans, lake loons, tall pines, and tender tulips.
As winter turned to spring, and magical May breezes melted the winter’s snow, Mary had to inch her stool back from her Singer, to give needed airspace between her belly and the bobbin. She became obsessed with hand-making items for her new baby, from socks and swaddling blankets, booties, beanies, and burp cloths, to onesies and a going-home-from-the-hospital outfit. Web made a tiny bassinette by hand, and Mary stacked it with their baby’s clothes.
“The charms were right,” Web told Mary one evening as they sipped iced tea on the screened porch. “We are blessed in America.”
During the last month of her pregnancy in July, Mary felt something change in her body. One day, after months of internal kicks, she could no longer feel anything, and when she went to visit her doctor, his face went blank as he held a stethoscope to her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Mary asked. “Is something wrong with my baby?”
Mary was rushed to the operating room.
Her baby—a girl—was stillborn.
Mary could hear Web’s sobs echo down the hospital’s hallways.
“We can try again,” Web said to Mary, as she recovered. “Doctor says you’re fine. Just happens sometimes.”
But Mary didn’t respond, even after she had been released from the hospital a week later. Along with her baby, she had lost hope. She refused to talk, or eat.
The first thing Mary did as soon as she returned from the hospital was take a seat in front of her Singer and begin to sew. In the middle of the night, Web woke to find his young wife was not beside him. He could hear the soft whir of the Singer sing throughout the cabin.
“Mary, what are you doing?” he whispered in the night.
She simply looked up at her husband and continued to sew.
“Mary, what are you doing?” he asked again.
“Making our child’s burial dress.”
Web’s heart shattered, and though he wanted to run away and cry, he said instead, “I’ll keep you company while you sew.”
The funeral dress was long and white, with full arms and pink stitching and little pink bows. The hem featured floating swans, lake loons, tall pines, and tender tulips.