She was better at holding things back than any 13-year-old had any right to be. Your fingers are wrapped, Marin said. They split a bit. It's fine. You don't have a thimble.
Odora said nothing. Mama's thimble is Marin stopped herself. Odora waited. She did not push. She had learned by now that pushing Marin produced only pressure in the opposite direction, and that the girl's silences were not empty.
They were full of something being worked through, and the work needed time. Is there anything else you need? Marin said finally. Her voice had gone very careful. Neutral in the particular way that meant she was managing her own reaction with both hands.
I'm all right, Odora said. Marin stood in the doorway for a moment more. She looked once more at the cedar trunk at the bare boards at the row of brass tacks Odora had arranged along the wash stand by size. Then she turned and went back to the kitchen, and Odora heard the single floorboard creek and then silence. She did not sleep that night, but not because of the work.
She finished Bess's dress on December 23rd, just before 3:00 in the morning. The last seam on the collar, a whip stitch she had to do by feel, because the lamp was lower than she'd realized, and she didn't want to refill it and risk waking someone. She bit the thread off and knotted it against the seam, and then held the dress up toward what remained of the light. It was good, not perfect. There was a slight asymmetry in the left sleeve she'd noticed when she attached it, but couldn't correct without taking the whole armhole apart, and she didn't have the days for that, but it was good.
The collar was clean and sat flat, and the wine dark burgundy of the wool was deep and warm, and it held its color despite the weeks of handling. She laid all three dresses out on her bed in order. Bess's smallest and simplest at one end. Tilda's carefully pieced in the middle. Marin at the far end with the long skirt and the deeper neckline and the slightly wider sleeves.
She looked at them for a long while in the dying lamp. They looked like dresses made for children someone was paying attention to. She rewrapped her fingers with fresh cotton because the ones she had on were stiff with dried blood and she didn't want to bleed on the fabric. And then she gathered all three dresses carefully and took them to the kitchen and hung them hung them on the pegs the bindant tree door out of sight but somewhere she could reach them in the morning before the girls came down. Then she went to bed and slept for 3 hours and got up and started the Christmas bread.
In the morning Garrick came downstairs at his usual hour and found three dresses hanging from the kitchen pegs and Odora at the stove with her back to him. As though there was nothing unusual in any of this. He stopped in the kitchen doorway and stood looking at the dresses. The color was the first thing, the rich wine red of the wool. All three dresses the same fabric.
All three clearly knew. Miss Finch, he said. Merry Christmas, Mr. Voss, she said without turning. Where did you?