Small Stitches Will Keep Us Together
Garmuj, Ourfa District, Autumn 1905
Khatoun
The little pocket of sky outside the window is turning dark. Khatoun puts down her sewing and listens. There it is again. The first cricket. She stands up, tiptoes over to the sleeping mats and pulls the thin muslin curtain aside. Alice is finally asleep, one arm folded in under her chin, the other abandoned across the patchwork, palm up. Years ago, when this was her room, Khatoun had lain in exactly the same spot watching the sky change from turquoise to indigo in that same window. A star or a cricket. Which would send her to sleep first? Tonight, the cricket. She rests the back of her hand on Baby Alice’s forehead and pulls the quilt away. The past few nights had been warm even though they are weeks past
