The needle slipped, and I drove it straight through my thumb.

I swallowed the cry before it could escape, wiped the blood against an old rag, and kept going, careful not to let a single drop touch the olive fabric spread across my quilt. That fabric wasn’t just cloth. It still smelled faintly like him—aftershave, metal, something warm and familiar that hadn’t quite faded.If Camila or her daughters ever caught me with it, I knew exactly how it would go. Laughter first. Then comments that lingered long after.

So I worked in silence.

Each cut of the scissors, each pull of thread, felt less like sewing and more like holding myself together.

There were nights I pressed the jacket to my face just to breathe him in again, remembering the way he used to guide my hands at the sewing machine, patient, steady, like nothing in the world could ever go wrong as long as he was there.

After he married Camila, everything shifted.

Her kindness came in flashes—only when he was watching. The moment he left for duty, the warmth drained out of the house. My chores doubled overnight. Laundry piles appeared outside my door like quiet demands. Lia and Jen moved through the house like it already belonged to them.