Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 25 of 65

The plan held for two weeks. Then Elowen developed a rattle in her chest on a Wednesday morning, and the pediatrician sent Violetta to the clinic for a check. The nurse listened to the baby's lungs and said preemies caught things fast. Keep her away from dust, smoke, and crowded rooms. Wipe surfaces. Wash hands. Violetta drove home with the words sitting in her lap. Her sewing room was a small bedroom stacked with fabric bolts, thread bins, and a rug she had not shaken out in two months. The corners held lint she could see from the doorway. She could not carry Elowen in there. She could not leave her in the next room and sew for three hours while dust drifted under the door. She stood in the hall and did the math. Her mother's house was clean, but she could only go three afternoons a week. That left four days of nothing. The dress needed the sleeve set, the hem finished, and the lining cut. She could not fall behind again. She called Jordie at work and told him what the nurse had said. He came home at lunch. He looked at the sewing room, then at the bassinet in their bedroom, then at Violetta. He said they should move the sewing out. Not into another room. Out of the house. They drove to the small studio downtown, the one with the wide front windows where mannequins stood in the light. Violetta had walked past it a hundred times. Jordie parked and waited in the car with Elowen while Violetta went in. She asked the woman at the front desk if they rented bench space by the week. The woman said they did. Forty dollars for a table, a chair, a lamp, and access to the pressing station. Violetta wrote a check from the money Jordie's parents had sent for baby supplies. She would pay them back. She carried her sewing case in from the car that afternoon and set it on the rented table. The room smelled like steam and clean cotton. No dust. No baby monitor. Two hours of quiet before the next feeding. She sewed the sleeve set that afternoon and pinned the lining before she left. On the drive home she told Jordie the trade-off out loud so she could hear it. Forty dollars a week, plus gas, plus the hours she was not with Elowen. He said they would find the money. She looked at Elowen in the mirror, sleeping in the car seat, breathing clean. The sewing room at home would stay closed until the baby was stronger. The dress had a new address. She had ten months, a rented table, and a daughter who needed rooms without lint. It would have to be enough.