The written estimate lay on Della's cutting table on July 14, held flat by a tin of tailor's chalk. The minimum repair came to $2,400. I had asked the contractor to distinguish what was necessary from what could wait, and there it was in plain writing. A smaller number than the money I had lost could still be far beyond what I had.
Della read only the total I pointed out. "Does this keep the house dry?"
"It's the minimum repair he has set out. I'm not buying a new house from the top down."
"I wasn't suggesting you were." She slid the sheet back toward me. "What are you thinking of doing?"
I had come to ask whether she knew anyone who needed small work. Cushion covers, dining seats, repairs I could manage without taking on a full suite. Yet the machine upstairs at my house had been in my thoughts all morning. I mentioned it as though I had just remembered an object in a cupboard.
Della did not pretend not to understand. "I'd buy it," she said. "If you're considering selling. I have room, and I could use it."
"For what price?"
"Sixteen hundred, after a demonstration. You know its condition better than anyone. That's a business offer, Inez, not something you owe me gratitude for."
I looked at the chalk tin rather than at her. Sixteen hundred was two thirds of the repair target. It was also the sound I had worked beside for years, the steady pull under my palm, the means of taking on the occasional large commission even after I called myself retired.
"With the table?" I asked.
"With the table and motor. Your hand tools stay yours unless you want some separate arrangement. I don't need them."
That mattered more than it should have. I could picture the machine gone and still see my shears in their drawer, the curved needles in their little case. Then I pictured someone asking me to do a sofa and having to say I no longer could. Retirement by choice had felt different from selling the thing that allowed me to change my mind.
Della waited. At the next table a woman was pinning a hem, unaware that I was measuring the rest of my working life against eight hundred dollars still missing. I caught myself doing the old arithmetic of rescue: one decisive act, one sum delivered, the trouble finished. The roof might be financed that way, but the choice would remain afterward.
"I can't answer today," I said.
"I didn't ask you to."
"I heard an amount and started thinking I had to."
She leaned her hip against the table. "I want a machine that will do the work. I don't want you regretting the sale in my doorway every Tuesday. Take time. If either of us changes her mind, we say so before money changes hands."
I asked her to write the offer down, including what she expected to buy. She found a blank sheet and did it without amusement. I had once trusted a voice promising me thousands. Now I wanted ink for a fair offer from a woman I knew. That was not an insult to her, and she did not treat it as one.
We went over the description together. I corrected one detail about the attachments included with the machine, and Della amended it. The act of correcting her steadied me. I knew this equipment. I could describe what it did and what it did not do without anybody else's reassurance.
"Could I still take small work here sometimes?" I asked.
"We can discuss particular jobs when there are jobs. I won't sell you an imaginary income along with buying your machine."
That answer disappointed me and increased my trust in her. I folded the offer separately from the repair estimate. One was an expense, the other a possible means, and neither was yet a plan. Before leaving, I bought the zipper I had originally come for weeks earlier and had kept forgetting to pay for.
At home I went upstairs and uncovered the machine. Dust had gathered along the edge of the table, but the metal beneath my hand was familiar and cool. I did not turn on the motor. I sat at it long enough to imagine the empty space it would leave, then brought the cover back down. Asking for time had preserved the choice. It had not made either answer painless.