She lifted an emerald and ecru plaid from a Jo-Ann bag. My fingers read the twill weave. We couldn’t tell what the fiber was exactly. Maybe rayon? The yarns had a sheen, like the glint of an eyeball. My mom let the cloth hang from her hands to show me its heavy drape. “I thought you could make a nice skirt with it,” she said, her voice breaking.
My mom understood how sewing fluttered me out of depression. After all, sewing compelled her, too. When I was growing up, the thrum of her sewing machine would lull me to sleep as she pulled all-nighters to make us matching shalwar kameezes — tunic, trouser and stole sets — for Eid.