By the time I'm finished, the only person who will know the repair is there is you. Bess absorbed this. And you and me, Odora agreed. Bess watched the needle move for a while. Then she said, I left extra in the hems.
When you made them, I felt it. Odora glanced at her. What do you mean at the bottom? There's extra folded inside. Bess looked at the sleeve with the serious expression of a six-year-old stating something precise.
Tilda has it, too, and Marin. She paused. Why? Odora made two more stitches before she answered. Because you'll grow, she said.
That way, when you do, someone can let the hem down and the dress will still fit. Bess thought about this. Did you know we'd grow when you made them? I expected you would. Yes.
How much did you leave? Enough for a few years. Bess looked at the sleeve in Odora's hands, the needle moving in and out with small, precise strokes, and she said, "So, you were thinking about us being bigger when you made them?" "Yes." Bess nodded slowly as though this confirmed something she'd been working toward.
She didn't ask anything else. She sat in the warmth of the sewing room and watched the repair be made, and when it was done, she held the sleeve up to the south window light and turned it and looked very hard for the seam and couldn't find it. She looked at Odora. Her face was simple and open in the way of a child who has not yet learned to make expressions complicated. "You're good at this," she said.
"I've had a lot of practice," Odora said. Will you teach me sometime? Yes, Odora said, "When your hands are big enough to hold the needle comfortably." Bess looked at her hands, seemed to make an assessment, and appeared to decide that this was a reasonable timeline. She slid off the chair and went back toward the door, the dress in her arms, and then she stopped and turned back with the suddenness of a child who has just remembered a thing.
"Yora," she said. It was the first time any of the girls had called her by her given name. Marin and Tilda still used Miss Finch, and Bess had previously used nothing at all, which was typical of Bess's approach to any naming situation that involved some risk. Odora came out of her with the sound of something she'd been practicing quietly. "Yes," Odora said.