Mending
Bonnie Brewer-Kraus
I found her denim jacket stuffed into the garbage can outside, one arm waving in the breeze. A rip under the arm, a slash across the breast, the embroidered patches torn and hanging. She’d told me that she collected those patches wherever she lived. They’re like my diary, so I can see where I’ve been. A mermaid, a lighthouse, a mountain capped with snow, a cactus, a star, and a chameleon. The chameleon’s my symbol because he knows how to belong wherever he is. She and her man lived upstairs from me in a two-decker, two blocks from the expressway ramp and the Walmart.
The next day I waited until her man left for work, then went upstairs with her jacket and my sewing box.
“I can mend your jacket,” I said. “I’m not a great seamstress, but my mama taught me the basics.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging. She was still in her nightie, and I could see the marks on her neck and shoulders. Her eyes were empty. I knew that look, the end of the line look when you’re just staring at blank space, and nothing comes after. She was on her way, but I already lived there.
She made me coffee and let me stay because her mama raised her to be polite. I sat down at her kitchen table and started sewing. The seams would show, but my mending would hold them together. The scars on her body would not let her forget so easily. Mine were like a road map to nowhere.
“You’ve done more with this place in four months than I’ve done with mine in seven years,” I said. She had painted the kitchen egg-yolk yellow and stenciled orange sunflowers on the walls. She’d cut the pattern out of some plastic sheets she found in the garbage.
“How did you learn to do that stenciling? It’s gorgeous,” I had said when she invited me in the first time. She showed me the stencils with their smudged edges, and I admired the cut-out holes that became blooming flowers on her walls. When was the last time I had seen a sunflower?
“Growing up, I learned to make something out of nothing,” she had said. She was shy and proud at the same time. “I could show you how, it’s not hard.”
I had chuckled and said that just keeping things the same was taking all my energy, without contemplating improvements.
Of course, the landlord wouldn’t like her decorating, but I thought it lifted the spirits to see those joyful flowers on a gray Pittsburgh day. Everywhere I looked in her place there was some little touch of hers: daisies in a blue vase, wall art she’d made from painted scrap lumber that looked like trees, a cracked mirror with a painting of an apricot sunset over a blue sea. His touches were there as well: a fist-sized dent in the plaster, a broken door with a boot mark, a table with a duct-taped leg.
She watched me as I stitched her past life back together and I coaxed her to tell me the story of each patch. “I thought I was a mermaid at one time, I was that good a swimmer. If my folks had stayed longer in Panama City, maybe I would have become a mermaid, just lived my life in the sea. And this star, that was the evening star. My daddy used to call me his evening star, said he loved coming home to me.”
Her eyes were coming alive. She smiled and stroked the jacket. Her lip was swollen. An old bruise shadowed her left eyebrow. I wondered if he’d ripped the jacket right in front of her, to break her spirit.
“And what about this one, the lighthouse?” I liked listening to her soft voice and I wanted to keep her talking. I knew from experience that talking helped when the darkness came, even if you never talked about what was really bothering you. Words made you feel human again. I tied off a thread, cut it, and jabbed my needle into the next wound.
“I climbed that lighthouse the day after my daddy died. We always planned to do it together, but we never did. I stood on the top holding the railing, blown about by the wind, the gulls screaming around my head. I felt like I was flying.” Her hands clutched the edge of the metal table as if she were clinging to that railing and her gaze was distant, seeing beyond the walls of her life.
Sometimes all it takes is a vision, a moment when you remember who you were supposed to be.
I tried to imagine myself on top of that lighthouse, but all I saw was myself pitching forward over the railing, falling to smash on the rocks below. You see, I’m afraid of heights.
I shook out the jacket, examining my work. It wasn’t the same and never would be, but it was in one piece. She hugged me and gave me more praise than I deserved, modeling the jacket in her small kitchen encircled by sunflowers. Already, I could see her walking in places I would never know.
That afternoon, when I returned from the supermarket, the sunflower stencils were stuck in my door with a little note, Give it a try. I knew she was gone, and my heart warmed. For once, the sun was shining in Pittsburgh. Her man threw a tantrum that night, trashing the place.
The landlord, a hang-dog guy with nervous eyes, stopped by a couple of weeks later, complaining about the mess the upstairs tenants had left and the difficult rental market. He looked around my kitchen and said, “What is it with you women and sunflowers? It’s like a disease or something. I just painted over these flowers upstairs and now they’ve traveled down here.”
The sunflowers surrounded us, smiling from the walls and the cabinets, happy to be alive.
Bonnie Brewer-Kraus
I found her denim jacket stuffed into the garbage can outside, one arm waving in the breeze. A rip under the arm, a slash across the breast, the embroidered patches torn and hanging. She’d told me that she collected those patches wherever she lived. They’re like my diary, so I can see where I’ve been. A mermaid, a lighthouse, a mountain capped with snow, a cactus, a star, and a chameleon. The chameleon’s my symbol because he knows how to belong wherever he is. She and her man lived upstairs from me in a two-decker, two blocks from the expressway ramp and the Walmart.
The next day I waited until her man left for work, then went upstairs with her jacket and my sewing box.
“I can mend your jacket,” I said. “I’m not a great seamstress, but my mama taught me the basics.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging. She was still in her nightie, and I could see the marks on her neck and shoulders. Her eyes were empty. I knew that look, the end of the line look when you’re just staring at blank space, and nothing comes after. She was on her way, but I already lived there.
She made me coffee and let me stay because her mama raised her to be polite. I sat down at her kitchen table and started sewing. The seams would show, but my mending would hold them together. The scars on her body would not let her forget so easily. Mine were like a road map to nowhere.
“You’ve done more with this place in four months than I’ve done with mine in seven years,” I said. She had painted the kitchen egg-yolk yellow and stenciled orange sunflowers on the walls. She’d cut the pattern out of some plastic sheets she found in the garbage.
“How did you learn to do that stenciling? It’s gorgeous,” I had said when she invited me in the first time. She showed me the stencils with their smudged edges, and I admired the cut-out holes that became blooming flowers on her walls. When was the last time I had seen a sunflower?
“Growing up, I learned to make something out of nothing,” she had said. She was shy and proud at the same time. “I could show you how, it’s not hard.”
I had chuckled and said that just keeping things the same was taking all my energy, without contemplating improvements.
Of course, the landlord wouldn’t like her decorating, but I thought it lifted the spirits to see those joyful flowers on a gray Pittsburgh day. Everywhere I looked in her place there was some little touch of hers: daisies in a blue vase, wall art she’d made from painted scrap lumber that looked like trees, a cracked mirror with a painting of an apricot sunset over a blue sea. His touches were there as well: a fist-sized dent in the plaster, a broken door with a boot mark, a table with a duct-taped leg.
She watched me as I stitched her past life back together and I coaxed her to tell me the story of each patch. “I thought I was a mermaid at one time, I was that good a swimmer. If my folks had stayed longer in Panama City, maybe I would have become a mermaid, just lived my life in the sea. And this star, that was the evening star. My daddy used to call me his evening star, said he loved coming home to me.”
Her eyes were coming alive. She smiled and stroked the jacket. Her lip was swollen. An old bruise shadowed her left eyebrow. I wondered if he’d ripped the jacket right in front of her, to break her spirit.
“And what about this one, the lighthouse?” I liked listening to her soft voice and I wanted to keep her talking. I knew from experience that talking helped when the darkness came, even if you never talked about what was really bothering you. Words made you feel human again. I tied off a thread, cut it, and jabbed my needle into the next wound.
“I climbed that lighthouse the day after my daddy died. We always planned to do it together, but we never did. I stood on the top holding the railing, blown about by the wind, the gulls screaming around my head. I felt like I was flying.” Her hands clutched the edge of the metal table as if she were clinging to that railing and her gaze was distant, seeing beyond the walls of her life.
Sometimes all it takes is a vision, a moment when you remember who you were supposed to be.
I tried to imagine myself on top of that lighthouse, but all I saw was myself pitching forward over the railing, falling to smash on the rocks below. You see, I’m afraid of heights.
I shook out the jacket, examining my work. It wasn’t the same and never would be, but it was in one piece. She hugged me and gave me more praise than I deserved, modeling the jacket in her small kitchen encircled by sunflowers. Already, I could see her walking in places I would never know.
That afternoon, when I returned from the supermarket, the sunflower stencils were stuck in my door with a little note, Give it a try. I knew she was gone, and my heart warmed. For once, the sun was shining in Pittsburgh. Her man threw a tantrum that night, trashing the place.
The landlord, a hang-dog guy with nervous eyes, stopped by a couple of weeks later, complaining about the mess the upstairs tenants had left and the difficult rental market. He looked around my kitchen and said, “What is it with you women and sunflowers? It’s like a disease or something. I just painted over these flowers upstairs and now they’ve traveled down here.”
The sunflowers surrounded us, smiling from the walls and the cabinets, happy to be alive.