sooner or later

Bits of cloth lay scattered on the ground. Strips of white lace, blue velvet, shiny black silk – you name it. Classy fabric, trashy fabric, fabric fit for playing in the sun and playing in the mud. Little needles and pins stood buried in the carpet, like bombs littering a warzone, waiting to rupture on your heel. If cloth were corpses and needles were missiles, then World War III had already taken place in that tiny sewing room. Anyone who laid eyes on it for the first time called it a nightmare. You couldn’t walk, or even tiptoe, for fear of being stabbed in the foot.

But, she called it paradise – maybe even heaven. In her sewing room and that room only, she was unstoppable – fifty years younger, a hundred times happier, and one secret lighter. Every fabric was a masterpiece waiting to be made into something beautiful, especially this one.

Grace, the only one in the household daring enough to enter, crept in. She glued her back to the sides of the room, trying her best to miss all the needles on the ground. “What are you workin’ on over there?”

“Oh, just finishing up something.”
“Well, what is it?”
“A dress.”
“What kinda dress?”
“Wedding.”
“What? Nobody’s getting married, Grandma.”
“I am.”
“What do you mean, you are? I think it’s a little too late for that.”
“It’s never too late, Grace. Never too late for anything. So long as you really want it.”

Then there was silence – not the kind that made you feel at a loss, though. Her two hands, over the years, had grown old. Threading string through the eye of a needle never seemed quite so hard, ‘till recent years at best. Hands trembling, eyes squinting, she brought string and needle close up to her face, painted in wrinkles whose crooked paths outlined every joy and every sorrow of her secret.

“So you’re finally marrying him, aren’t you?”
“Yes, dear. In my heart, at least.”
“Why’d you wait so long?”
“Cause now he’s gone. He’ll never have to know I loved him the whole time. He’ll never have to know he was the one I really wanted.”
“Well then what’s the point? Isn’t it too late if he’s gone?”
“It’s never too late. Never too late for anything. He’s gone, but I’m still here.”