I hadn’t seen her like that since we were girls.
Her hair was pulled back, and she looked unsure whether she should come farther inside.
“Hello, Ruthie,” she said.
I put down my scissors.
“Hello, Diane.”
She took an old apron from the bag.
It was faded and soft from years of use, with a worn pocket and a small stain near the hem.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to our mother.
“I found it when I was cleaning out the attic,” Diane said.
“I’ve kept it for forty years.
I just never told anyone where it came from.”
I touched the fabric and pictured our mother wearing it while she pinned a sleeve or leaned over a dress at the kitchen table.
“You kept this all that time?”
Diane nodded.
Then her face crumpled.
“I was so ashamed of where we came from, Ruthie.
You were the one who never left it.
Every time I looked at you, I saw the life I’d spent years trying to hide.
I’m sorry about table 19.
I’m sorry about the dress.
I’m sorry I let people believe I’d bought something in Paris when you made it for Chloe.”
She didn’t ask me to excuse her.
She simply sat down and cried.
I had imagined listing every slight, from her introductions to table 19.
But seeing her with our mother’s apron, I didn’t want to win an argument.
I wanted my sister back, though an apology couldn’t erase what happened.
I made her tea.
We talked about our mother and the childhood Diane had tried to put behind her.
I told her I had never been ashamed of the factory or the work.
It gave us a mother who could make something beautiful from whatever she had.
After a while, Diane glanced at the second sewing machine.
“Do you think you could teach me again?”
I pulled out a chair.
“Thread that needle.”