She slammed her door so hard the picture frames jumped.
I stood there with the phone still in my hand.
I almost called Eli right then. I almost walked across the lawn and told him to put down the needle, that I had been wrong, that I was sorry for his fingers.
Instead, I walked.
His mother let me in without a word and pointed up the stairs.
This was not mine to open.
I pushed his door open.
He was asleep at the sewing machine, cheek pressed against the table, one hand still curled around a spool of thread. My photographs were printed and fanned across the floor beside him, names circled in pencil. The dress stood on a mannequin behind him.
Ivory. Structured. Roses blooming in tiers down the skirt like a garden someone had grown overnight.
I stepped closer.
There was something inside one of the roses. Tiny stitches, words maybe, tucked into the folds of the silk where you would have to lift the petal to see.
He was making something I didn't have a name for yet.
I reached out, then stopped.
This was not mine to open.
I covered Eli with a blanket from his bed and clicked off the lamp.
Walking home across the dark yard, I understood.
He wasn't making a dress.
