Chapter 3: His Face Was Wrong
My uncle's name is David.
He is sixty-four years old and I have never once seen him cry.
Not at his father's funeral.
Not when his own marriage ended.
Not at anything.
He was crying now.
Quietly, with his mouth pressed closed, the way men of his generation do when they are trying very hard not to.
"David." I stood up from beside Grandma's chair.
"What's happened?"
He shook his head.
Not the answer — just buying time.
"David."
"She didn't want anyone to know," he said.
"She made me promise."
I looked down at Grandma.
She had her eyes on him with an expression that was not quite surprise and not quite anger.
Something more tired than either.
"Tell her," she said.
"Go on."
He pulled a garden chair over and sat down heavily.
The last few guests were still near the gate.
My husband was inside with the baby.
It was just the three of us in that corner of the garden, and the light was going golden the way it does in July around seven o'clock.
"She started going blind in January," David said.
"The right eye first.
Then the left started."
I turned to her.
"Grandma—"
"I can still see shapes," she said.
"Don't make a face."
"You didn't tell me."
"I know I didn't."
"Why?"
She was quiet for a moment.
A bee moved through the lavender beside the fence.
My daughter's laughter drifted out through the kitchen window.
"Because you had enough to carry," she said.
"You always have."
I sat back down on the grass beside her chair.
I didn't trust my legs.
"The dress," I said.
She nodded, once.
"I finished it in February.
Before the left eye got worse." She paused.
"I needed to finish it while I still could."
David made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
He looked away toward the gate.
"I kept thinking," she continued, "what if she doesn't get there.
What if I wait and she doesn't get there and I never made the dress." She stopped.
"So I made it."
"While you were going blind."
"The stitching is a bit uneven on the left side of the collar."
"Grandma."
"I know which side.
You'll know which side.
She won't know which side.
That's all that matters."
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
The garden was very quiet.
"Does Mum know?" I asked David.
"No."
"The doctor?"
"Yes.
Since March."
I looked at her.
"What does the doctor say?"
"That I'm a hundred and one," she said, "and that I should rest."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one worth having at my age." She reached out and found my hand without looking.
Her fingers were cold despite the July warmth.
"I didn't come here for sympathy.
I came here because I said I would.
And I came to give her that dress while I still knew what I was giving."
I couldn't speak.
David stood up.
He walked a few steps toward the lavender and stood there with his back to us, his hands in his pockets.
"There's something else," he said, without turning around.
Grandma's hand tightened on mine.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
"David," she said.
The word had a warning in it.
"She needs to know," he said.
"You said tell her.
So let me tell her."
The garden felt very still.
"Tell me what?" I said.
He turned around.
His eyes were dry now.
He had used the moment at the lavender to collect himself, and whatever was on his face now was not grief.
It was something more deliberate.
"The photograph," he said.
"The one she keeps on the table.
The one of you on the step."
"What about it?"
He looked at Grandma.
She gave him the smallest nod.
"That dress she made you," he said.
May you like
"The original one.
She didn't make it for you."
