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Dear Jesus,
Thank You for bringing unexpected love into my life.
I didn’t recognize it at first, but she certainly fills the void in my heart.
You are good, all the time.
In your name,
Amen
After an hour of assembling the solid wardrobe, I realized I needed to make space somewhere for it to go, or it would just be sitting in my living room forever.
Opening the hallway closet, on one side was my stackable washer and dryer. The other side had shelving and places to hang coats, with a mid-level shelf that was perfect for it. I just needed to clear everything out. I carried out the pieces one by one. A shoebox full of DVDs, a small bin of souvenirs from the few trips I’d taken to the coast, and a sewing machine. I’d forgotten about the machine, but there was a time when I would sew my own blouses and scarves. A blazer here and there. Once, I made a lined tweed jacket, but I’d messed up on the sleeve and my right arm needed to lose a few inches before I could wear it. So, I took my seam ripper and tore out the inside stitches, enabling my arm to fit, but the entire sleeve tore open when I lifted my arm to adjust my glasses at the Monday morning meeting an hour later. I wasn’t sure anyone noticed. Though if they heard the ‘RIIIPPP’noise, they didn’t acknowledge it. I couldn’t lift my arm and lived with it glued to my side the rest of the day.
The problem with that was, there was an appropriate amount of movement you should expect from your arms when you walked. Too much movement, and you risked looking like an ape—but too little, and you look like that one kid we all knew in middle school that grew up to be a billionaire. This kind of walking was often paired with rolling the ball of your foot like you're stepping on your tiptoes with each slide.
I think I’d rather have that gait than the one I was born with, however. Being pigeon-toed wasn’t very glamorous when they forced you into giant brown leg braces as a child. Though I believed we peaked as a society in the 1990’s, it wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of healthcare. Anything that could be fixed now with a shot and a special sock, like my feet, back then needed experimental surgeries, heavy duty hardware and years of childhood torment. The only thing worse than this was my parents' generation where the treatment for anything from a headache to a bad mood wasn’t heroin like you’d think—no, it wasn’t cocaineeither.It was an enema.
Underneath the sewing machine was a small box of fabrics, nothing larger than a foot in length—there in case I ever had a project that required such a small piece. My mother came to mind yet again, her voice telling me to hang onto the scraps when she taught me how to sew all those years ago. “You never know when you might need a piece that size, Katie.” She scolded me as I had a 1x2 inch piece of fabric left over from a lap quilt, and I was dangling it above a trash can.
Looking at my sewing machine, I suddenly felt a pang of inspiration. My apartment was torn apart now, with piles of stuff from my newly emptied closet, the mysterious leftover parts from Dolly’s new dog wardrobe, and all the hangers waiting for her clothes, which were also laid out.
My apartment looked like a bomb had gone off in a beauty pageant supply store for elves. Everywhere you looked was some miniature bedazzled accessory or outfit. But I set up my machine on my kitchen table anyway, pushing my puzzle pieces out of the way—another hobby I hadn’t had much attention for this week. I pulled my few supplies out of the tray beneath my machine and took some measurements. I cut and cut until the scissors hurt my hands, making some sort of patchwork material since I didn’t have enough yardage to just use one color. I lined it up the best I could in places where it mattered, and I used some fasteners. Velcro would’ve been better, but I used what I had.
It was now ten o’clock and, in my hands, I held a dog dress that looked like a quilt. It had simple construction and crude details, but I excitedly put it on Dolly—after waking her up to do so. It was a little too tight in places, but the thrill of accomplishment and a new hobby pulsed through my veins.
Something in the back of my mind was awakened after a very long hibernation. Creativity flowed through me for the first time in years. In my work, creativity wasn’t at the top of the list for researching, and I forgot just how intoxicating it felt to craft something beautiful with my own hands.
I took the dress off Dolly and hung it up on a hanger, placing the wardrobe in my closet. I would leave the sewing machine out for now. Just looking at it sparked my mind, and I spent the rest of the night cleaning up my apartment, whileworking out the details on how I could’ve made the dress better.
By the time I went to bed it was past midnight, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stayed up so late. I carried Dolly into her bed to our room, turning out the lights, and fell asleep nearly instantly when my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, we both slept in and decided it was much too dreary for the Art Walk. Since we’ve beengo go go, I decided today would be a lazy day. Tomorrow was our pet owner’s class, so I planned that we’d make a day of it and do fun things beforehand.
After drinking a half cup of coffee, I decided to try a few more rounds on my sewing machine. I was rummaging back through my fabric scraps when I found a larger remnant that could be a layered bandana, so I tried my hand at sewing that. What seemed like a simple project took over an hour as I first needed to iron the fabric, then starch, then I ironed it wrong and started over. Now I was out of starch, and I didn’t properly latch the leg of the ironing board, and it crashed down, knocking over my cup of coffee into my lap. Thankfully, Dolly was across the room, but she was upset at the sound nonetheless, and I had coffee soaked undergarments, nearly burning a hole in my carpet.
Sewing the bandana for Dolly was easy and it turned out cuter than I imagined. I had an old headband with a cheesy bow on it that I took apart and fastened the bow to her bandana. It was darling. Did it lookhomemade?Yes, it did. But these weren’t the jeans I was wearing on my first day of high school. It didn’t matter if Dolly wore something homemade because I was the only one seeing her today. I shuddered at the memory of the outfits I felt so proud of that I wanted to debut them to a school of two thousand unruly kids who’d steal your lunch and give you a swirly for wearing last year’s mall trends. Thankfully I didn’t get the latter treatment for my horrible clothes, but it was only because the lunch lady happened to be in the bathroom at that very moment.
She was a large, mysterious woman with a lethal combination of strength and a vague air which led me to believe in military influence. What she lacked inthe mustache-plucking ability, she overpowered in fear tactics and true grit. Rumor had it she was a bodybuilder in her time off. Others said she was working on an invention of a plastic glove that was not only food safe, but also contained hidden brass knuckles inside.
I still send her a Christmas card every year. Once, she sent one back. A picture of her wedding anniversary announcement, taken somewhere tropical. Her husband was about half her size in heightandwidth. Judging by the look on his face, he looked very happy. But the death grip of her arm around him told me this could also very well bea cry for help.
I started to brainstorm all the items I could make Dolly, and I decided a trip to the fabric store was in order. But there was no fabric store like the one athome.My mind went to my mother again. This weekend we will visit. I would go to the fabric store while there. I vaguely remembered the last time I went, which must have been five years ago. There was a woman with three chihuahuas in her cart.
The memory stuck to me because I found it so unusual that in her cart—that she was using giant bolts of fabric to contain, was full of fluffy chihuahuas. She told everyone she passed that they were famous and had just been cast in a movie.
My mother took a picture of them, but I never found out what movie it was until later in the day when I heard an advertisement on the television while I was helping my mother wash dishes. They really were famous chihuahuas! Maybe Dolly would be famous someday, and I’d be buying bolts of fabric with her face on them.
That was a few days before I moved out here. It had been a big day of errands. I got a new car battery, tire check, and oil change. I had to pack a few more items and get some moving materials. But the biggest chore—and scare for my mother—was that I was simultaneously changing banks in the process ofmoving. My old bank was just a small branch, and where I was moving, didn’t have that chain. So, that morning, our first errand was to close my bank account.
I asked my mother three times if she wanted to go inside with me, but she said she was tired. Tired or not, she was having feelings of disbelief that her offspring was fleeing the coop—no matter how old I was, and the fact that I hadn’t lived at home in years. I turned off the engine and absently took the keys in the bank with me.
I was at the teller’s window, asking for my account to be closed and cashed out while they worked on a few pieces of paperwork for me to sign. We heard a car alarm in the distance, but no one looked up as it is not unusual for this neighborhood. The windows were all double or triple-paned glass, whatever is normal for a bank, but the wall facing the parking lot was completely glass and the door included.
We all heard a bang. The teller braced herself for whatever wasattemptingto come through the door.Was it a robbery? Were we about to meet a gunman?I turned, wincing, but I saw it was just my mother, who’d pulled on the door when she should’vepushed,and now she had banged her forehead as she doubled over, holding it.
“Oh my.” I saw that my headlights were flashing as she came inside, disoriented.
