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111

"You've been working steady," Carol said.

Miss Jo had given them a box of rags and scraps the last time they'd been to town. Some of the scraps were decent sized to be rags—the size of Carol's hand or so. Some of them were hardly large enough to be taken into hand without sweeping them up.

Carol had already taken out those that they could use for other things, but Andrea had wanted to hold onto even the tiniest little scraps for something she was doing.

The pieces of cloth were bits and pieces that women didn't want, for one reason or another, when they made their purchases. The end of a roll of fabric, sometimes, would not be quite as pretty as the rest. There was some imperfection that made them refuse to pay for this or that. Sometimes there was a fraying that they worried over and the like. Miss Jo had gathered together, as well, the scraps and bits that got tossed aside when she made the clothing that she sold in the story, ready-made, for the women who were much less handy with a needle and thread and for the men who had no time or notion of how to make their own clothes.

Miss Jo ordered some clothing, ready-made, but the prices for that clothing were often quite high, and few people who bought from her could pay them. Her own hand-made items, though, could be let go for less and, in that way, she could make quite a profit by selling a good deal of items she made.

She had agreed, too, to sell some items for Andrea, if she wanted, in exchange for part of the profit—a percentage for using the store's front.

When Andrea had asked for the scraps, for her own use, and had offered some payment for them, Miss Jo had given her the whole box with nothing more than the hope that the scraps found some use.

Andrea was spending a great deal of time sewing on whatever she was creating, when she wasn't working on her other chores and tasks, but every time Carol neared her to see what she might be creating, she hid what she was doing under her skirts, if necessary, to keep Carol from seeing the work that occupied her fingers.

Andrea jumped and hid her work, this time, under the mending she'd done earlier. In the process, she must have stabbed her finger very well with the needle, because the red blood that welled up came in a large, dark drops and ran down her finger.

"Oh—I didn't mean for that to happen," Carol said, coming quickly to where Andrea normally sat by the fire while she mended. As she would with anything else, Carol simply took the edge of the apron she was wearing and wrapped it around Andrea's finger, squeezing it into her palm. "I didn't mean to startle you. I only meant to ask what you're working on so much."

"Won't be a surprise if I show you," Andrea said.

"It's meant to be a surprise, then?" Carol asked.

Andrea didn't tug her finger away from Carol, and Carol didn't let go of her hold on it. She lowered herself down to rest on her knees next to Andrea. With her balance as it had started to be lately, the getting down really wasn't so hard, but she was finding the getting up to be more challenging. Andrea, though, wouldn't leave her to struggle—she knew that. She'd help her up, if she found that she required it.

Andrea hummed.

"I guess it is," she said.

"For Christmas?" Carol asked.

"Didn't even think of that," Andrea admitted. "I guess—no. Not for Christmas."

"But a surprise, nonetheless," Carol said. Andrea half-shrugged. "Come on, then. Surprise me now with what it is. I love to watch when you make things. You're so much better at it than I am."

"You sew just fine," Andrea said.

She offered Carol an arm without Carol having to ask for it, and Carol pulled herself back up. She released Andrea's finger, finding that the blood was stopped. She took a long, thin scrap from the box and tied it around Andrea's finger, making sure the little knot wouldn't deter her from continuing her sewing for a bit. Andrea watched her, seeming to relish the bit of care.

Sophia, too, watched them from where she played in the floor with some of the corn cob toys that Daryl made her to spread on the floor and create her little worlds—worlds that only she understood.

"I sew enough to make a dress that's passable," Carol said, "or a shirt that will keep the sun off. But what you sew? Andrea—it's even nicer than the dresses sewn for church. You sew the things that are fit for fine ladies and gentlemen. The kind of people that have cups made from bones and such."

Andrea laughed.

Carol didn't mind if Andrea laughed at her from time to time. She laughed, too, happy to hear Andrea's laughter. She didn't take it personally. They had come from different worlds, and now they lived in the same one, their lives so tightly intertwined that it was difficult to tell quite where one ended and the other began.

"I drank from fancy cups like that," Andrea said. "And I learned to sew because that was proper and fitting of a lady. Hours every day, my mother would make me sew in careful stitches that she would inspect—just to see them. So many stitches were wasted that way, just to be sure I could do them tight and even, whenever it was required of me." Andrea shook her head at Carol. "I don't like sewing like that. I like sewing like I live now."

"Sewing like you live?" Carol asked with a laugh.

"Free," Andrea said. "Like I can breathe. Fine…just as it is. If they go a little wild—if I go a little wild—I don't have to start again. I don't have to…rip out everything. People still say the stitches are beautiful, even if they aren't perfect."

"Nobody here is perfect," Carol said. She took the remnants of the morning coffee and poured it into cups for the two of them to share. She brought one cup to Andrea, and Andrea sat the whole of her sewing to the side for a moment. Rather than try to stoop again, Carol sat in a chair nearby, and Andrea turned her body—rather than fussing with her chair—to face Carol. "We don't expect what we can't offer in return."

"I feel like everybody here is perfect," Andrea said. "Perfect to me, at least. You, Daryl, Sophia…Merle…"

Carol smiled at her.

"You do love him," Carol mused.

"I couldn't imagine loving nobody like I love Merle," Andrea said. "He's my true, official husband. Forever and ever."

"He is that," Carol said. "He doesn't seem to have a mind to be anything else."

"Daryl, neither," Andrea offered.

"Daryl, neither," Carol agreed. "He's so good to me and Sophia. So gentle and easy. He don't never yell at her, you know? No matter what she does, he don't yell—not…not unless he's gotta get heard or somethin' like that, but…"

"I know what you mean," Andrea offered, allowing Carol to keep from continuing trying to explain what she was saying.

"Merle's not as gentle as Daryl," Carol said. "I can't help but notice, sometimes, that you…well…that you do come in here with your fair share of bruises and angry marks on your face and arms…sometimes your legs. Andrea—I have to ask or I wouldn't be your sister, or not a very good one—and that's what we're supposed to be, isn't it? Is Merle hurting you?"

"Not that I don't ask him to," Andrea said. "And that's the truth, Carol. Good as gospel."

Carol accepted that. She believed it. Andrea seemed sincere, and there was nothing about her eyes or anything else that suggested that she was trying to get Carol to believe something that was simply untrue.

Carol didn't necessarily understand asking someone to hurt her, but maybe that was only because she'd spent so much of her time wishing that she could get Ed to simply stop hurting her. Maybe it was because she'd been afraid that, one day, Ed would hurt her too much—and that he might hurt Sophia. Maybe it was different for Andrea and Merle.

Carol hummed as she thought about it.

"Merle hurts you like you ask him to?" Carol asked.

"You think I'm wrong for asking?" Andrea asked quickly and defensively. Carol could sense tension in the air.

"No," Carol said, her tone purposefully even. She knew what happened when people got that air of tension about them. The reaction was never good. She was happy to see that her answer, simple as it was, soothed Andrea. "No—you ask of your husband what you want, and he gives it to you—that's a good marriage. You give him what he wants?"

"As long as I'm able," Andrea said, her answer sounding a little like someone stepping carefully to avoid a hole.

"Does he stop if you ask him to?" Carol asked. "Hurting you, I mean?"

"I guess so?" Andrea said. "All I mean to say is that—I've never wanted to ask him to stop, and so I haven't. But—I suppose if I was to ask him to stop, he'd do it just the same as he starts because I ask him to start."

"That's fine then," Carol said, not that Andrea or Merle, either one, had asked her what she thought about it. Still, she felt at least a little protective of Andrea. She was glad to know, though, that Merle and Andrea made each other happy, whatever that might look like between them. "Are you gonna show me your surprise?"

"I guess you'll see it anyway," Andrea said. "Soon enough."

She pulled what she'd been working on from under the other things where she'd haphazardly stuffed it out of sight. She rested it on her knee and unfolded the tucked parts so that Carol could see it. Carol ran her fingers over the work that had already been done—not drawing attention to the stain that was clearly a smear of Andrea's blood from her hastily putting the thing away and injuring herself.

Stains only added to imperfection, Carol thought, and imperfection was acceptable here.

"This is beautiful," Carol said.

Andrea smiled.

"It's nothing, really," she said.

"It's so intricate," Carol said, running her fingers over the stitches. "The pieces are tiny."

"They're big enough," Andrea said. "And some of them are really beautiful. Don't you think? Look at this…and this one. Can you imagine just throwing them into the fire?"

Carol laughed.

"I can't imagine sitting and sewing them together," Carol said.

"I think they're beautiful…"

"I think whatever it is that you're making is beautiful," Carol agreed. "But—what is it?"

"A blanket," Andrea said.

"You're making a whole blanket out of those tiny scraps?" Carol asked. Andrea hummed to say she was. "That'll take forever, Andrea."

"Not forever," Andrea said. "Just—about as long as it'll take you to grow the baby, Carol, and it's a blanket for the baby. A quilt. Babies need to be kept quite warm, and they ought to be comfortable and have pretty things. Don't you think it'll be pretty enough for the baby, when I'm done?"

Carol didn't want to admit that she'd seen the messes that babies could make. They hardly needed terribly pretty things. She recognized, though, that Andrea's need to do this was, perhaps, not so much about the baby's actual need for pretty things as it was about Andrea's need to make pretty things for the baby.

"It'll be too pretty for the baby, Andrea," Carol said. Andrea frowned at her. "But—if you're determined to give it to the baby, then I'm sure that…the baby will love it."

Andrea smiled. She nodded and ran her fingers over the tight stitches that she was putting into the cloth during most of her free moments. She might say that she liked to let her stitches be wild and imperfect now, but Carol could only see them as truly nearly perfect. She could hardly imagine that fingers that spent as much time as Andrea's did doing most of the sewing and mending for the both of them, could hardly ever produce anything more perfect—especially given that they must ache, terribly, from their almost constant work.

"You are going to let me hold the baby, aren't you?" Andrea asked. "I mean—I know you'll be holding it most of the time because…you're it's mama and…you'll have to do all that, and it'll…well…it ought to want you to hold it more than any of us, but…"

"You will certainly have to hold the baby. Your help with the baby is gonna be so important to me, Andrea," Carol said. "So important. Just like I can't handle Sophia all on my own—just like that? Oh—I'm gonna need your help all the time. Every day. I couldn't hardly imagine trying to handle the baby all by myself, and Sophia, and the chores besides." Andrea smiled. "And that blanket? Is going to be…perfect."

"Now I'm only worried about one thing," Andrea said after a second.

"What's that?" Carol asked.

"We've got nothing for Christmas…" Andrea said.

Carol laughed.

"Don't worry," she said. "I've got some ideas for that—and I'm gonna need your help with those, too."