Memory's Seamstress

She starts by putting on her shoes. The ones by the bed look too large, but she reaches for them anyway, thinking she could stuff them with tissues to fill the gaps. She begins to pull out several from the box on the bedside table. The tissues remind her of white camellias. Beautiful camellias in a dozen vases lined along the tables of a crowded funeral parlor, and in a little boy’s suit buttonhole which Betty had adorned with a single bud.  

“Betty?” A shuffle of feet from the doorway startles her. “Why are you crying?” A woman hurries towards her from the bedroom door and removes the box from her hands. "Was I crying?" Betty asks. The woman sweeps the tissues to the floor and Betty watches them drift like gulls flying lazily over water. Bobby loved the beach as much as Betty loved flowers. 

The woman’s voice is gentle. She wipes away Betty's tears as if she has done it a thousand times. With each swipe of her thumbs over the arched cheekbones a pink petal unfurls in Betty’s mind. “Francis is waiting for me, but these shoes are too big. She’ll wonder where I am if I’m late. She’ll forget about me. She told me she wouldn’t wait if I wasn’t there.” She holds the too large shoes helplessly in front of her. The woman hums. It’s a sweet, soothing sound, like a little bee. Her brow is furrowed, and Betty notices the gray hair, and the delicate white wisps like spiderwebs at the corners of her eyes.

Betty put her hands to her own face. She feels her fingers bound over small hills and valleys there. She can't remember when she got old. It feels a lot like turning over in bed. You start life toward the sun, and everything lives inside that border-less yellow. Then one day you’ve turned the other way. The future as colorless as aged, pressed flowers.   

“There’s still plenty of time. Your clock runs fast. I’ll help you with your shoes, but I think we ought to look for a new shirt first.” The woman says. Betty looks down and is surprised to find she is still in her pajamas. “Oh, for heaven's sake!” She laughs. “I must be in a hurry.” The woman opens the curtain and then moves toward the closet. Her fingers touch on each garment, surveying the fabric and lengths of each blouse before finally deciding on a purple button up. Betty watches the way she handles each material as if they were made of something finer than acrylic and polyester. The feeling of unfurling arrives again in Betty’s mind.

Francis had made the suit Bobby had worn the day of his funeral. That was how they had met. Betty was beside herself with grief. Robert was her only child. She and David had tried for more, but the babies did not survive. Bobby was her pride and joy.  David had accused her of coddling him too much. “You can’t hold his hand his whole life. He’ll never learn that way.” He had told her. But Betty had wanted the world for Bobby. Even after he died, she wanted the world for him. She thought a new suit might help fill the hole that guilt had left when she turned away from him for a moment in the surf. 

David had left her in the several months after the funeral, and she could not blame him. Betty had not left Bobby’s room for weeks. Had not even turned on the light. She lay like a dormant seed, wrapped in a brown wool blanket in his small twin bed. It was Francis who pulled her out of her slumber.

The woman moves to the dresser. She finds a pair of pants in the bottom drawer and assists Betty out of her pajamas. She helps her dress and kneels onto the floor, slipping Betty’s feet carefully into a pair of compression socks. She slides a shoe box out from underneath the bed containing a pair of perfectly sized brown loafers. “Francis gave me those on my birthday.” Betty says. “And a book.” Thoughts like gnats flit in the dust revealed by the dim light of the open curtains. “It was Orlando, by Virginia Woolf.” 

  Francis had placed a bus ticket between the pages. It was one-way. She wrote no note, but Betty understood. There was nothing for her in the house alone. It had been over a year now, and her son’s ghost was the only thing left in the house besides herself. “You’ll be a ghost too if you stay here, and I love you too much for that to happen.” Francis had said. It was the first time she had said those words aloud. Everyone was moving west, and Francis had thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to start over. To be alive for the first time.  

“There.” Betty blinks. The woman is beaming satisfactorily, slapping her hands to her knees and standing them both upright. “You look wonderful.” The woman pulls her over to the mirror. Side by side as they are, Betty notices how remarkably well matched they appear together. She sees herself too. Her hair is white where time has snowed over it. Or perhaps it was the bees that had done it, with the pollen on their tiny feet. It was not hair at all, but strands of sticky sugar. A thought winds its way from the back of her mind to the front like creeping thyme but slips away.  

“Weeds.” Betty remarks. “They grow so quickly you can’t pull them all out to get to the important things underneath.” 

“But are they still there, aren’t they? The important things.” the woman asks. Betty turns. She feels the urge to grab the woman’s hand, so she does. They are warm and soft, and the skin is thin as paper, the little blue veins like ink telling an unreadable story from her arm to her elbow. “Oh yes, all the important things are there.” She entwines their fingers. “You’re sure I won’t be late, and that Francis won’t leave without me?”  

“I’m absolutely positive you won’t be late.” 

At the table Betty sits in the chair by the window. It is her favorite spot. She can look out at the street and the people going about their day.  A lifetime ago she used to look out the window and know immediately when Francis was on her way over. Some things are like that. Like reaching toward the phone just before it rings.

She eats her breakfast first quickly but then slows. The eggs are just how she likes them. The toast too, buttered, and drizzled with a bit of honey. At the center of the table is a small vase of gladiolus. She looks at the woman in the chair across from her and the feeling of arrival comes over her, the unfurling of something monumental. Dozens of pink petals push open behind her eyes.

“Francis,” She sighs, “I was just thinking about you.”