the margins of her books matched up with daily entries in her journal, over a span of at least ten years.
Scattered in the journals were more personal accounts as well, tales of my father early in their marriage, later subsumed by her pregnancy, and then by my infant self. These were all secondary, marginalia to the more important work of her life, which was clearly always her
work.
I had known this as a small child, and sometimes I’d wished I had been her center; now I thought I understood. She loved me—I’d always known that—but she loved her work too, and her inventions would not spring up without her, the way I would grow whether she spent every moment by my side or no.
Nicolette grows so quickly. Already she is not content to sit in her crib, napping or cooing at the mobile I made her. Already she wants to explore, so William has convinced me to keep her above stairs, where the furnace and the metals and the tools cannot hurt her. I miss my girl, but she is so quick, and certainly she will grow without me. My other children will not.
Her other children. I did not know what to make of that. I put Mother’s journals down and decided to focus on building, not reading, for a while. I pretended my heart didn’t ache.
✷
One evening, after I put Jules and his minions away, I had my first revelation. I’d turned away from the shelf that held Jules’s stable-box and back to the sewing machine. It was large, covering a good third of the drafting table that I’d pushed against the wall opposite my desk, but both machine and table were dwarfed by the absurd, frothy volume of fabric for Chastity’s newest dress. I was glad for the machine, but I still hated sewing for the Steps. I resented it for the time it took away from my reading and my inventions. But that night, as I stared at the machine’s iron frame, I realized that with a few modifications, Jules and his minions could do my sewing for me.
After consulting Mother’s books, I selected my tools. I built Jules a harness from the leather laces of Chastity’s too-small winter boots. A pulley system with a weight on the pedal allowed Jules, moving at a steady walk, to power the machine as quickly as I had done. With the minions’ help to guide the fabric, he could at least do my straight seams for me—and depending on how much I, and he, could teach them (for it seemed that just as I could speak to and teach Jules, he could speak to and teach the buzzers), perhaps they could eventually sew curved seams too, or even detailed work.
All those hours of freedom I’d gain . . . I was breathless with relief just imagining them. They were hours I’d spend working, mostly, but doing
my own
work. And—oh, miracle—I could sleep.
As it turned out, they were natural tailors. Soon all I had to do were the finest details, the buttonholes and pleating, which took far less time, though still too much for my taste. I hoped they would learn even those before long. But I also needed to make the Steps believe the work was mine, so I sewed whenever I had to linger in their presence.
I still spent one hour with them each evening to hear Stepmother read Scriptures. This nightly ritual was a remnant from Father’s time, the last lie that kept us a seeming family.
I stitched as easily as I could with my clumsy hands—or, rather, hands that I had often thought clumsy, but that created the machines of my mother’s design with an ease that still felt foreign. Every time I drove the needle into my fingers, I had to remind myself that I was not truly clumsy, only unskilled at this particular craft.
Piety and Chastity sat opposite my little stool, alternately lounging on their purple fainting sofa or staring bluntly out the window. Stepmother read each night’s Scripture with a sensuousness that never entered her voice when she spoke her own words. She had used the same tone to recite her wedding vows to Father—soft and dark, full of hidden seductions. What a
Scattered in the journals were more personal accounts as well, tales of my father early in their marriage, later subsumed by her pregnancy, and then by my infant self. These were all secondary, marginalia to the more important work of her life, which was clearly always her
work.
I had known this as a small child, and sometimes I’d wished I had been her center; now I thought I understood. She loved me—I’d always known that—but she loved her work too, and her inventions would not spring up without her, the way I would grow whether she spent every moment by my side or no.
Nicolette grows so quickly. Already she is not content to sit in her crib, napping or cooing at the mobile I made her. Already she wants to explore, so William has convinced me to keep her above stairs, where the furnace and the metals and the tools cannot hurt her. I miss my girl, but she is so quick, and certainly she will grow without me. My other children will not.
Her other children. I did not know what to make of that. I put Mother’s journals down and decided to focus on building, not reading, for a while. I pretended my heart didn’t ache.
✷
One evening, after I put Jules and his minions away, I had my first revelation. I’d turned away from the shelf that held Jules’s stable-box and back to the sewing machine. It was large, covering a good third of the drafting table that I’d pushed against the wall opposite my desk, but both machine and table were dwarfed by the absurd, frothy volume of fabric for Chastity’s newest dress. I was glad for the machine, but I still hated sewing for the Steps. I resented it for the time it took away from my reading and my inventions. But that night, as I stared at the machine’s iron frame, I realized that with a few modifications, Jules and his minions could do my sewing for me.
After consulting Mother’s books, I selected my tools. I built Jules a harness from the leather laces of Chastity’s too-small winter boots. A pulley system with a weight on the pedal allowed Jules, moving at a steady walk, to power the machine as quickly as I had done. With the minions’ help to guide the fabric, he could at least do my straight seams for me—and depending on how much I, and he, could teach them (for it seemed that just as I could speak to and teach Jules, he could speak to and teach the buzzers), perhaps they could eventually sew curved seams too, or even detailed work.
All those hours of freedom I’d gain . . . I was breathless with relief just imagining them. They were hours I’d spend working, mostly, but doing
my own
work. And—oh, miracle—I could sleep.
As it turned out, they were natural tailors. Soon all I had to do were the finest details, the buttonholes and pleating, which took far less time, though still too much for my taste. I hoped they would learn even those before long. But I also needed to make the Steps believe the work was mine, so I sewed whenever I had to linger in their presence.
I still spent one hour with them each evening to hear Stepmother read Scriptures. This nightly ritual was a remnant from Father’s time, the last lie that kept us a seeming family.
I stitched as easily as I could with my clumsy hands—or, rather, hands that I had often thought clumsy, but that created the machines of my mother’s design with an ease that still felt foreign. Every time I drove the needle into my fingers, I had to remind myself that I was not truly clumsy, only unskilled at this particular craft.
Piety and Chastity sat opposite my little stool, alternately lounging on their purple fainting sofa or staring bluntly out the window. Stepmother read each night’s Scripture with a sensuousness that never entered her voice when she spoke her own words. She had used the same tone to recite her wedding vows to Father—soft and dark, full of hidden seductions. What a
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