Artemisia Moretti's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Artemisia woke before dawn and looked at her shop with fresh fear. Elena had promised the constable. A woman who searched this hard would keep searching after she saw her daughter. She needed the shop to look like nothing but honest work. So she made a plan. By the time light filled the windows, she had covered the strange measurements. She hung finished dresses on the walls. She set out ribbon, patterns, a wooden dress form. A seamstress business. A place with nothing to hide. She pulled a bolt of muted blue cloth across the front table. She pinned a hem for show. Behind the curtain, the odd threads stayed folded away in a drawer. If Elena looked, she would see a shop that fit its era exactly. Beatrice arrived first, in her lace hat. Her hand went to the silver locket at her throat and stayed there. "She'll want to touch my face," Beatrice said. "Mothers do that." Her voice dropped. "I don't know if I'll flinch." "You won't," Artemisia said. "The memories are yours now. Let them lead." The knock came at nine. Artemisia opened the door. Elena stood in her navy dress, straight-backed, jaw set. She did not step in. Her eyes swept the room once, hard and fast, over the hanging dresses, the ribbon, the dress form. Looking for the lie. Then she saw Beatrice. Something broke open in Elena's face. She crossed the room in three steps and took her daughter's shoulders. "Beatrice." And Beatrice did not flinch. Her whole body loosened. "Mamma," she said, and the word came out easy, like she had said it ten thousand times. "You look tired. You've been up nights." "Three of them." Elena pressed a hand to Beatrice's cheek. Beatrice leaned into it. "I counted every hour." "I know that dress," Beatrice said softly. "You wore it the day I turned twelve." Elena's eyes filled. "You remember." "I remember everything." Artemisia stood by the table and watched the stitch hold. It held perfectly. Elena wept into her daughter's hair, and her daughter wept back, and the memories Artemisia had sewn from nothing carried the whole weight without a single seam showing. When Elena finally straightened, she wiped her eyes and looked around the shop again. This time her gaze was different. She saw the honest work. The hems. The ordinary cloth. "You keep her here," Elena said to Artemisia. "As your assistant." "She is the best I have ever trained." Elena nodded slowly. "Then I will come often." It was not a question. "To see my daughter. To sit while she works." She took Beatrice's hand. "I lost three days. I will not lose more."