‘Itwillwork!’ Sonya said.
‘Okay.’ Azam smiled. ‘We’ll start tomorrow.’
10
They tackled the shop the next day.
Sonya entered, determined for things to go perfectly so Azam had no excuse to be deterred, as she could see he was still a little hesitant. She recognized that feeling—she had felt it her entire life. But she had turned a new leaf.
She wasn’t a new person, just a new version of herself, and she quite liked it.
‘This was Mama’s shop,’ Azam told Dania, entering the shop with her in his arms. She was holding on to a stuffed rabbit. Sonya entered after him and pulled back the curtains. Dust billowed in the air as light entered in from the windows.
‘So dusty,’ Dania said, coughing.
‘Look, there’s Mama’s old machine,’ Azam said. ‘This is where she used to work.’
As Azam showed her around, Sonya and Kiri set to dusting and sweeping. Before they even made it through half the room, Dania had hopped out of Azam’s arms, uninterested as she went to sit on a chair.
‘Dania, look,’ Azam tried, but she was more interested in her stuffed rabbit than anything else. Azam’s shoulders fell, and Sonya went to his side, touching his arm. He was trying—and failing—to hide how much he wanted Dania to care and her chest tightened at his expression. They moved to the side.
‘Try to be patient with her,’ she said, gently. ‘She doesn’t have all the wonderful memories that you have. Right now, for her, it’s just another shop.’
He rubbed a hand over his face, sighing. ‘She’ll never know them the way I did,’ he said. ‘No matter what I do, it will never be enough.’
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. It hurt her to see him like this.
‘What’s the point of any of this?’ he asked.
Sonya frowned. ‘You can be her memory,’ she said, thinking about it. She had lost her mother without ever knowing her, the same way Dania had. She thought of what she would have wanted. ‘You can tell her stories! I wish my brothers talked about my mother. And you can make new memories with her. Help her feel involved, the same way your mother did for you.’
That seemed to lift his spirits a bit. He ran a hand through his hair, thinking.
Sonya got an idea. She smiled, then went over to Dania. ‘Darling, can you help me?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re the bestest helper there ever was, and I have a very important task.’
Dania perked up, attention shifting from her stuffed rabbit to Sonya. ‘Iamthe bestest helper,’ she agreed.
‘Do you see all those ribbons?’ Sonya asked, pointing to theshelf. Dania nodded. ‘What if we…’ She trailed off, going to hang twine up across the top shelf. Then, she handed Dania the first spool of ribbon. It was wide and light pink.
‘Hold tight, alright!’ Sonya said. ‘Like this.’ She moved Dania’s fingers to the ends, then began pulling the ribbon.
It unspooled and she brought it up to the twine, tying the end loosely; then, she took the spool and set it on the lower shelf. This way, the ribbon could be seen hanging from the twine.
‘Pretty!’ Dania said, clapping.
Sonya turned back to Azam, who had a crease between his brows. ‘That isn’t really how Mama kept the ribbons,’ he said, coming to stand beside her.
‘You’re allowed to make it your own,’ Sonya replied gently. Azam hesitated, but then he saw how happy Dania was to help, and he smiled as well, the tension leaving his shoulders.
‘You’re right,’ he said, eyes soft. ‘This is a splendid idea.’
He picked Dania up and set her on his shoulders. She laughed, holding onto his hair. Then Dania held the end of the ribbon while Sonya unspooled it, and Azam tied it on the twine, until the twine was full of the ribbons on display. The final effect was lovely.
‘Thank you,’ Azam said. He was still holding onto Dania’s knees on his shoulders, but he gave Sonya a private smile.
It took a few days but, eventually, they got the shop in order, and perfectly clean and organized. Dania and Kiri helped a bit, but it was mostly Sonya who was there with Azam. On top of organizing the shop, he needed to create sample sketches to show customers what kinds of things they might order. He paged through his mother’s old samples for inspiration.
‘It felt like whenever there was a party in the Outskirts, the guest of honor would be wearing one of my mother’s designs,’ Azamtold her, pride in his voice. ‘Mama would be especially busy at the beginning of spring—around this time—because everyone had more social events coming up and wanted new outfits.’
