On December 9, the machine stood ready at Harbor Stitch Workshop, its table steadied and the familiar motor silent. The practical work of getting it there had left me less time to mourn than I expected. Now Della wanted a demonstration, just as her offer specified, and I was grateful for a task with a beginning and an end.
Mara stood near the cutting table holding my coat. She had offered to wait outside if I wanted privacy. I asked her to stay. I did not need an audience to prove I was choosing, but I wanted her beside me for something other than an emergency.
I checked the threading and set two pieces of heavy scrap beneath the foot. My fingers found the sequence without conscious instruction. When the motor began, the sound filled the workshop in a way it had once filled the room upstairs. I guided the layers through, stopped, and turned the sample over for Della to inspect.
"Try it yourself," I said.
She sat and adjusted her position. Her first line wandered slightly, then straightened. I resisted the urge to put my hand beside hers. A demonstration was not a lifetime appointment as the machine's keeper. I explained one adjustment she asked about and showed her where I had kept the relevant attachment.
We compared what was present with the written description. Nothing had been silently added to the bargain; my hand tools remained mine. Della examined the machine and accepted it on the agreed terms. Then she brought out the $1,600 payment and the sale paper we had prepared.
"Before you sign," Mara said, "can we do my part?"
My shoulders tightened before I heard the rest. She noticed and shook her head. "No new conditions. I just don't want you wondering whether it's still a promise."
She placed her $400 contribution on the table with a short note identifying it as help with the repair, freely given. She did not ask for a copy of my balance or the right to cancel work. I read the note and asked whether she was certain her own expenses were covered.
"I checked. You asked me to decide, and I did."
I had to let that answer be enough. It would have been easy to examine her until her generosity became another kind of supervised act. I thanked her without asking her to prove twice that she was allowed to help me.
Della stepped away to fetch an envelope. In the little privacy that left us, I told Mara I was still sad about the machine. She put my coat on the table. "I know," she said. She did not call the sadness evidence against the sale, and I did not turn it into a reason to refuse her money.
I sat once more at the machine, with the motor off. There was a worn place on the table where my right wrist had rested through years of seams. I could remember work I had loved and work I had sworn never to accept again. Selling it ended the possibility of large upholstery commissions at home. It did not erase having done them.
"I'm ready," I said.
I read the sale paper once more and signed my own name. Della signed her part, and we each kept a copy. She handed me the payment. There was no cheer, no speech about a new beginning. The workshop needed the machine, and my house needed a repair. A fair exchange could still leave a person quiet.
At the cutting table we checked the repair fund: $1,600 from the sale, $400 I had saved, and Mara's voluntary $400. Exactly $2,400. I wrote each source separately so that no part of it could later become an imagined debt. The $6,800 loss was not reduced by calling another sum recovery.
Della asked whether I wanted a last look before leaving. I said I had looked enough for one morning. Then I went back and showed her a small habit of the thread guide I had forgotten to mention. We laughed, gently, because letting go did not require withholding useful knowledge.
Mara carried my coat while I gathered my retained tools. Outside, she asked whether I wanted to go home or get lunch. I chose lunch. The room upstairs would be empty when I returned, and I could face it after eating. For once, choosing to stay in my house had not required refusing company.