Daughter of Fate

Yards of silk slip effortlessly through Moira’s fingers. She draws a length of cream, draping it here, pinning it there. A silhouette comes to life, the echo of a dress. The bride and her mother exchange glances. A thrill of destiny, a sense of serendipity. 

Bolts of ivory and champagne and dusty rose clutter the worktable behind them. Rolls of velvet, satin and chiffon create a landscape of textiles, rivers and clouds. The studio clock ticks on as an afternoon shadow passes over its face. 

“This one was meant for you,” Moira says, removing the leftover pins from between her teeth and sticking them into a nearby cushion. 

The woman stares at herself in the mirror. “Really? You think so?”

“Oh, darling,” her mother coos. “It’s you, entirely.”

Moira knows her clients well—which ones can be convinced straight away, which must be romanced into the right dress. All morning, she’s taken this bride on a journey through not-quite-there and really-almost-perfect options, easing her into this moment. Now, finally, they’ve arrived.  

“This is it.” Moira nods. “Definitely.”

In her mind’s eye, she sees the dress already. Knows every stitch she’ll make. Every bead she’ll place. This cream silk, those ivory beads. Just as she sees the life of the bride—the wedding day, bride blushing as her groom reads his vows from a tattered notecard, the honeymoon in Provence, the pair of them sipping dark pinot at the edge of a bright field. The future seems ripe with possibility. The years pass over her face. She works as a teacher and then a real estate agent. Has two children, and then, distracted by a conversation with a stranger, loses one at the lake. The grief that splits her from her husband. The long years of regret, punishing herself. Much later, she marries again. Past that, the visions dissipate. Moira can’t be certain what follows. 

Perhaps she’ll make the dress for the second wedding, too. But she doubts it. 

For Moira, every woman belongs to a dress and every dress reveals a fate. A story woven by the universe. She finds their lives—all the women who stop into her studio—in the threads of the fabric they wear. Despite her years as a dressmaker, nothing of her own design goes into the dresses. The pattern is already there, waiting for her. Even if she wanted to change it, to quietly alter the paths these women set out upon, she couldn’t. 

She’s not a story-maker. Not a life-decider. Not like her mother once was. 

For so long, Moira’s mother, Clo, spun the mortal thread with her deft fingers, while Aunt Lacey measured each length of life. The eldest, Aunt Atty, the sister with the scissors, always took the worst job for herself. 

***

When Moira was born, her mother feared she would have to spin the thread of her own daughter’s life. Watch as Lacey measured her baby’s first step, her first word, first love, each precious laugh, each aching tear. Hold her breath as Atty held her scissors. Any moment they might snap together and split her from her child. Imagine a greater burden, a worse fate. 

After the ordeal of birth, after spinning a daughter from her womb, she couldn’t bring herself to return to her staff and spindle. Better to break them to pieces. Better to cut off her fingers and feed them to Cerberus. Instead, she asked to be released from her duties. 

To her surprise, her request was granted. “You were always free to go,” the gods told her, their golden brows furrowed. 

Without Clo to spin the thread, her sisters had no lives to measure or end. “If you go,” they warned her, “you’ll always wonder what’s next.”

“I hope so,” Clo said as she kissed her sisters goodbye. 

Moira was young when she recognized her skill. They never called what they had a gift. 

One day, she and her mother went shopping together. One of those big department stores where prim ladies waited behind cosmetic counters with an arsenal of free totes and tiny samples. Where fluorescent lights transformed minor irritations into raging migraines. But, most importantly, where rack after rack of garments waited to be tried on, taken home. 

Those days, her mother’s fingers still yearned for the feel of fabric. They wandered for hours, examining cashmere sweaters and lace lingerie, woolen coats and linen shawls.

Outside the dressing room, Moira watched her mother’s feet move beneath the door. She kicked off a mauve satin heel, toes dexterously edging the other foot free. Her bare feet flexed against the blue-grey flecked commercial carpet. 

The sounds of buttons snapping open, zippers zipping and unzipping. Her feet pivoted, the swoosh of a full skirt in flight. Moira sat just outside, waiting. 

Another dressing room door opened, revealing a disheveled woman in a cherry-red suede business suit. Front buttons done askew, one stocking slid below her knee. But the urgency melted from her expression when she spotted Moira. 

“Oh, hello,” the woman said, hanging up a smile. She emerged from the room to gaze at her reflection, hands patting the smooth seams of the skirt. “Smart, isn’t it?”

Moira nodded. Her mother didn’t care for materials that weren’t woven, skins and furs and such. 

“Of course,” the woman sighed and bent to adjust her stocking. “I can’t decide between this and the blue tweed.”

She slipped the suit jacket off and held it out to Moira. “What do you think?”

Moira took the jacket from her. Instantly, a rush of images flooded her mind. A sad, terrible story. A heartless ending. Her stomach turned.

“Not that one,” Moira cried out, dropping the jacket and shrinking back. 

“You don’t like it?” The woman retrieved the garment and turned it over in her hand as though searching for an invisible defect. 

At this, Moira’s mother peeked out from her dressing room, a pile of discards draped over one arm. “Oh, that red is superb with your coloring.” 

“Really?” the woman beamed, shifting her attention. 

“No, it’s—” Moira protested, but her throat closed up around the words she wanted to say. She rasped and coughed. 

Quickly, her mother apologized to the woman—allergies, goodness!—and led Moira away between stacks of denim shorts and cotton tees. 

Out on the street, Moira wrested her hand back from her mother’s grip. 

“What was that?” she demanded. “What happened?”

“You can’t ever tell them,” her mother said softly. “They don’t like to know, anyway.”

“Even if it’s bad?”

“Especially then.” 

Moira stomped her foot. “How could you stand it?”

Clo the Spinner grasped her daughter’s face with both hands, pressed her lips to her forehead, then whispered: “The only fate we really control is our own. Remember that, my love.”

***

In the studio, Moira jots down the bride’s measurements, though she already knows what they are. What they’ll be when the woman returns for the dress having sworn off carbs for the better part of a year. 

“We’re going to the south of France,” the bride says. “I’m saving all my calories for that.” 

“I hear Provence is beautiful in the fall,” Moira responds. “Have a glass of pinot for me.”

The bride giggles. 

“She’s been dreaming of this her whole life,” her mother adds, fussing affectionately with a stray strand of hair. “I always knew she’d find it.”

Having selected the cream silk and ivory beads after all, the bride and her mother are off. The tick-tick-tick of the clock resounds in the quiet studio. Sunset trickles in through the high windows. 

Moira leans against her worktable and runs her fingers over the crisp, textured fabric. This particular silk is one of her least favorites. It’s too articulate. Tightly woven, highly lustrous. The uneven threads result in irregularities in the weft. Dupioni is almost always for complicated lives. 

Moira is only one woman, a simple dressmaker. Not three sisters working together, spinning and measuring and cutting destinies like so many yards of silk. Still, sometimes she wishes could warn the women.

Like the soft-spoken woman belonging to the tea length gown in bone satin, whose husband hid a loaded gun in the nightstand. 

Or the one with the cathedral length train in eggshell chiffon. Laughter bubbled up out of her at every turn. Years later, she slit her wrists in a warm tub. 

But they don’t like to know—and after all, they’re the only ones who can change what's coming.