July 13th 1789
Disclaimer: I disclaim it.

It was not like Granny to drop a stitch.

The time was a quarter to eight according to the mahogany clock above the mantelpiece. Lucie had polished the surfaces just that morning. Since Lady Oscar and that insolent Andre fled the house of de Jarjayes, the maids had been careful to keep busy, for the Master's temper was boiling and the Mistress spent all day sat by the large window, her eyes unseeing.

Granny had been knitting to keep the tears away. And then there it went – as the quarter bell chimed, a stitch fell from her needles.
"Bothers and fiddlesticks!" she grumbled, and, knitting set aside, wiped at her glasses with the edge of her apron, "Losing my eyesight at this age…"

But there was another time that she dropped a stitch, an insignificant memory surfacing like a fish in a pond. She caught it just for an instant, and that was enough for her to remember.

Philippe was spoilt enough as her only child. Her husband was usually at home with him, the book selling business delegated to promising subordinates, and as she was privileged enough to have quarters at the de Jarjayes, she could spend her free time with her son too. Not that there was much of that to spare – the young Master de Jarjayes was to be sent off to military academy, and there was much to prepare.

How old was she then? No more than twenty five?

Philippe had the most mischievous eyes. A swirling green – a green fire perhaps, alive like a sea of flowers on a sunlit meadow. And as he grew taller to stand heads over her, his arms would get ever stronger as he pulled her into embraces.

"Ma," he would say, "Pa's just given me the greatest book!"
Or, at other times, it would be,
"Ma," in a honey sweetened tone, "We never really liked that blue porcelain set did we?"

And when the librarian's daughter, a girl who looked like she were made of water, came into the life of Philippe the stable-boy, when they wed with the blessings of the families, when the Master was already a father of three beautiful little girls, her husband passed away like the falling autumn leaf, withered and brown and crinkled. Was she not knitting some green thing that night? Did she not drop a stitch?

Granny wondered over this memory spread over so many happy years, which opened like a book in the space of time that the ripples take to appear on the water. And then, her hand fled to her heart, because she remembered another time a stitch was lost – a February night – it was just before she heard the weeping in the streets, the solemn footsteps that she prayed would pass her door, which of course they did not. Did her hands not clench the knitting as the knocks came, and as the door was slowly opened to reveal them – side by side, the sodden bodies? Andre was a little older than four then. Just four. And how old was she? It was some thirty years ago.

It was more than a minute since that old clock chimed the time, but Granny could not resume her work. She grasped the armchair for support, her frail body thrown into a cold shudder. In the quiet sunset of the 13th of July she felt her eyes moisten and let herself weep. That telltale stitch escaped her praying hands, lost into nothingness, and now she let her tears burn and fall for Andre, who would never return.