The Names Sewn Inside the Collars

The kitchen table

It was evening, and the kitchen window was already dark.

I had the overhead lights on over the table, because my eyes aren’t what they were even at thirty-two.

I was wearing my cream cardigan, the one with the button missing at the bottom, and I had my long blonde hair back in a low ponytail to keep it out of the needle.

The radio was on the station that plays old hymns after eight.

Beside me on the table I had a stack of folded school clothes, every piece the girls had left, plus the new ones from Walmart.

The plastic box sat open with Grandma’s spools lined up in their little rows.

I chose a thread close to each piece’s color, so it wouldn’t show from the outside.

I wasn’t trying to make a sign out of it. I just wanted it there, small and certain, on the inside where it touches your neck.

I sewed “Brynn Hale” inside the collar of every one of Brynn’s shirts, and inside the waistband of every pair of her jeans and leggings.

“Callie Hale” in all of Callie’s. Small letters, backstitch, the way Grandma taught me, so it wouldn’t pull out in the wash.

A name in a collar takes me about twelve minutes, if I’m careful and my eyes cooperate.

A waistband takes longer, because the denim fights the needle. I counted twenty-four pieces. I did about eight a night.

On the third night, I was working on Callie’s little purple shirt, the one with the buttons at the collar.

I had the C done and was starting the a, and I looked up because I felt somebody watching.

They were both standing in the kitchen doorway in their pajamas. Both wore red and navy plaid flannel, Brynn’s a little long and Callie’s a little short at the wrists now.

“Mama, what are you doing?” Callie asked. She came a step closer and squinted at the collar in my hands like it was a magic trick.

“Putting your names in,” I said. “So your clothes know whose they are.” It was the only thing I could think of that was true and wasn’t too much for seven.

Callie smiled like that was the best idea anybody ever had. She came all the way over and put her chin on my shoulder and watched me finish the l and the l and the i and the e.

Brynn didn’t smile. She stayed in the doorway with one hand on the frame, nine years old and already standing like her daddy.

“Is it because of Daddy?” she said. Not loud. Just plain, the way she says everything. She had always been the one who saw too much.

I set the needle down. I didn’t want to lie to her, and I didn’t want to put her father in the dirt in front of her either. Both of those things felt like they would cost her something.

“It’s because they’re yours,” I said. “And I want them to stay yours. That’s all, honey. Nobody’s in trouble.”

She looked at me for a long minute. Then she came over and sat in the chair next to mine, and she picked up one of her own shirts off the stack, and she ran her thumb over the place where her name was.

“Can you do mine in purple?” she asked. “On the inside, where nobody sees.”

So I did. I picked out the spool and I did the rest of Brynn’s in purple, every single one, and she sat up with me until almost ten on a school night, which I am not proud of, but I would do again.