On November 20, I finished an ordinary supervised session and found myself reluctant to leave. Nothing had gone wrong. I had done the limited work given to me, asked one question, and handed it over. Yet I lingered with my coat over my arm, waiting for someone to say something that would change what awaited me at home.
Amos noticed. "You looking for somebody?"
"An answer, perhaps."
He understood enough not to joke. The supervisor was nearby, and I asked whether there was any information I should expect concerning my own reported loss. I tried to keep the question narrow, but behind it stood the sewing machine, the repair estimate, and the hope that I would be spared choosing between them.
I received no forecast of repayment and no case timetable. Nothing I was told allowed me to put recovered money into my household budget. The supervisor did not dismiss the loss, but neither did the answer change because I had done volunteer work. I thanked the supervisor and put on my coat.
Outside, Amos said, "It would be nice if something came before Christmas."
"Yes."
"I didn't mean I knew anything."
"I know you didn't."
We parted without making a prediction for each other. I went to Harbor Stitch Workshop with the kind of heaviness that comes when a hope has not been disproved but can no longer be used. Della was adjusting a length of cloth on the cutting table. She asked whether I had come about the machine.
"Partly. Is your offer still open?"
"Through December tenth," she said. "I can hold it to then. After that I need to decide about another arrangement for the work I have."
I appreciated the reason even while disliking the date. A fair deadline could still hurt. I asked her to confirm that the offer remained $1,600 for the machine and the equipment specified. She brought out her copy and wrote the date on it. We both initialed the addition.
"I won't ask you every time you come in," she said. "But I do need an answer by then."
"You'll have one."
She offered me tea, which I accepted. For several minutes we discussed a customer's choice of a pale fabric for a chair used by a large dog. It was a pleasure to have a professional opinion that was not also a confession. I said the customer ought to know what could be cleaned before falling in love with the color.
"People are entitled to buy something impractical," Della said.
"After they understand it."
She smiled into her cup, and I knew we were both hearing the other conversation underneath. I did not mind. She had not told me what a sensible woman must do. She had given me the terms on which she would buy a machine.
At home I spread my statements on the table. My savings were growing, but I would not trust the total in my head. I matched deposits and withdrawals to my own entries, then checked what remained to reach $400 by December. Some of the money had come from saying no to things small enough that I missed them without having a useful story about sacrifice.
I had not skipped necessary bills to make the savings look better. I checked that again. The amount belonged to a repair fund only if the rest of my life could continue around it. I wrote the remaining savings requirement on the calendar, in the same ink as Della's deadline.
For a while I left a blank line beneath the figures. I knew what I was waiting to put there: restitution, repayment, some unexpected return that would allow the machine to stay. Finally I drew a line through the empty space. Not because money could never come back, but because no money had come back and no promise established that it would.
Mara telephoned while I was putting the statements away. She asked whether the volunteer work had supplied any news. I said no forecast, and told her about December 10. She asked whether I wanted her to come over. I said not that evening; I wanted to finish my own arithmetic.
Afterward I went upstairs and oiled the machine where it needed oil. Maintenance was not a vote against selling. I wanted it working properly for whatever came next. When I lowered the cover, I knew the roof plan had to stand on money we could name, not on justice arriving before a buyer's deadline.