She asked. "Sewing scissors," Odora said. "The blades are curved. It helps when you're cutting curved seams. Bess came inside without being invited and sat in the chair across the table.
Her feet didn't reach the floor. Can I touch them? When they're closed, yes. Bess touched the handle very carefully. Then she looked up at Odora with the specific directness of a small child who has not yet learned that some questions are rude.
Did you know our mama is dead? I did, Odora said. She used to sew. I heard that. Bess considered this with the serious expression of someone working through a complicated sum.
Then she said, "Papa doesn't sew." "Marin patches things sometimes, but she doesn't like it." She paused. "Do you like it?" "Yes," Odora said.
"I like it very much." Bess nodded slowly as though this confirmed something she'd already suspected. Then she put her feet up on the chair rungs and watched Odora check the scissors edge and didn't say anything else. And that was that. By the end of the first week, Bess had taken to following Odora around the house in the mornings, not talking much, just present, Odora didn't make a ceremony of it.
Tilda was nine and curious in the way that made adults nervous because she asked questions that were slightly too precise for comfort. On the third day, she appeared in the kitchen while Odora was mending a torn seam in one of Garrick's work shirts, sat down across the table, and watched for several minutes before saying, "That's a running stitch." "It is," Odora said. Mama used a different one on collars. "Smaller, a whip stitch, probably."
"Finer." "You'd use that where the seam is visible and needs to look neat." Tilda's eyes sharpened with interest. "Can you do both?" "I can do about 14 different stitches," Odora said.
Depending on the fabric and what the seam needs to hold. Tilda was quiet for a moment. Then would you show me sometime if father says it's all right? Yes. Neither of them mentioned to Garrick that Tilda had asked.
And Garrick, who spent most daylight hours in the barn or the cattle pastures and came inside only to eat and sleep, did not ask. Marin was the problem. Not in the way a difficult child is a problem. Marin was not difficult. Not exactly.