Maren
My hands shook just a little. Not enough to mess up the stitch, but enough that I felt it. This was the last night here.
Mama sat across from me, her head bent low over the white fabric. It was the dress for tomorrow. The ceremony dress. She’d been working on it for three days, quiet-like, not telling me anything, but I knew. Everyone knew. Now, she was fixing the hem, her fingers quick, putting in tiny stitches that no one would even see.
“You know, Maren,” Mama said, her voice low. She didn't look up. “When you were a baby, you were the prettiest thing I ever saw.”
I just kept sewing the silver thread. Small, shiny loops, just underneath the hem. We talked like this a lot. Not really talking, but saying things that hung in the air, things too heavy to say out loud when my fath
