Chapter 6 - The Thursday Suit
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The fever came back before midnight on her first night home.
Declan carried her down the narrow stairs she had climbed so stubbornly that afternoon, and this time she did not argue.
At the hospital they called it a warning rather than a disaster.
Fluid had gathered near the wound and turned angry, and it had to be drained and watched.
She was readmitted for two nights.
She hated every clean, beeping hour of it.
The doctor used the word unacceptable three times.
Sophia listened from the hospital bed with her right arm held close against her side.
The sling made her feel smaller than the pain did.
“You have a hole beneath your shoulder,” the doctor said.
“I am aware of the hole.”
“You cannot sew.”
“I did not ask whether I could sew.”
Declan stood by the window and said nothing.
That worried her more than argument would have.
When the doctor left, Sophia looked at the ceiling tiles.
“The suit is not finished.”
“It does not matter,” Declan said.
“It matters to me.”
“It was a fitting.”
“It was a promise for Friday that you moved to Thursday.”
He came closer to the bed.
“You were shot on my street.”
“It is not your street.”
“It is while I am standing on it.”
She shifted and felt the pull beneath her right shoulder.
The pain arrived white and immediate.
She breathed through it until the room steadied.
“Do not look like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like you are deciding something for me.”
“I am trying not to.”
“That is new.”
A faint sound left him that was not quite laughter.
Jamie Doyle arrived an hour later with her coat, her keys, and a paper bag from Mrs. Kowalski.
He set the bag down as if it might explode.
“She sent soup,” he said.
“She sent enough soup for a small country,” Sophia said.
“She is worried.”
“Everyone is worried.”
Jamie glanced at Declan.
“He has not slept.”
“I can see that.”
Declan ignored them both with practiced effort.
Sophia opened the bag with her left hand.
Her fingers fumbled on the lid.
Jamie did not reach to help her.
She was grateful for that more than she could say.
“I need to finish the left sleeve,” she said.
“No,” Declan said.
“I need to check the lining and set the button stance.”
“No.”
“You can carry the suit back here if you like.”
“I will burn the suit.”
“You will not.”
His winter-gray eyes held hers without blinking.
“You nearly died in that suit’s unfinished state.”
“Then let me finish it before Thursday buries us both in symbolism.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was full of everything he would not say in front of Jamie.
Jamie cleared his throat.
“There is the girl,” he said.
Sophia frowned.
“What girl?”
“Priya Nair.”
“The name means nothing to me.”
“She applied at the shop in November.”
Sophia remembered then.
A neat handwritten letter.
Nineteen years old.
Two years at a community college for fashion design.
Hands that had trembled when she held a needle for the interview that never happened.
“I did not hire her,” Sophia said.
“You did not answer her.”
“I could not afford her.”
“Declan can.”
Declan finally spoke.
“I already pay your medical bills without permission.”
Sophia turned her head slowly.
“We have discussed that.”
“We have argued about that.”
“It was not a discussion because you did not listen.”
Priya arrived the next morning with a canvas tote and terror in her eyes.
She stood at the foot of the hospital bed holding a garment bag.
“You brought it,” Sophia said.
“Mr. Doyle said it was urgent.”
“Mr. Doyle exaggerates emergencies for a living.”
Jamie lifted one shoulder from the doorway.
“Only when they are real.”
Priya laid the suit across the empty chair with reverence.
Sophia studied the dark wool in the thin hospital light.
It still smelled faintly of the shop.
Hot wool.
Chalk.
Home.
Her throat closed without warning.
She swallowed and made her voice practical.
“Left hand only,” the nurse said from the door.
“I heard her the first four times,” Sophia said.
Priya sat where Sophia directed her.
She took the needle as if it were a weapon she respected.
“Again,” Sophia said.
Priya pulled the stitch through.
“Slower.”
“I am slow.”
“You are careful.”
“There is a difference.”
“There is a lesson.”
For two hours Sophia dictated what her hands could not do.
She described cuts she had made ten thousand times.
She corrected the angle of the sleeve by sound more than sight.
Priya listened the way a musician listens for a wrong note.
Her left hand shook when she tried to hold the fabric herself.
The right hand lay useless and aching.
She hated it with a clean and private fury.
Not the pain.
The dependence.
Sewing was not work she did.
It was how she knew where she stood in a room.
Without it she was a woman in a bed giving orders about thread.
Declan watched from the corner without interrupting.
At noon he left and returned with tea she pretended not to want.
She drank all of it.
“You do not have to witness this,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I do.”
Priya glanced between them and wisely said nothing.
By evening the sleeve was set.
By the next morning the lining lay smooth as water.
Sophia ran her left palm over the lapel.
It was not perfect.
It was true.
That would have to be enough.
“It will do,” she said.
Priya exhaled as if she had been holding her breath for a day.
“It is beautiful,” Priya whispered.
“It is Thursday,” Sophia said.
Declan did not try it on in the hospital.
He carried it out himself instead of letting Jamie take it.
Sophia watched his hands close carefully around the hanger.
Something in her chest moved that had nothing to do with the wound.
Thursday came with sleet again.
The meeting was held in a private room above a restaurant neither family owned.
That had been Sorin’s condition.
Neutral ground.
No weapons past the inner door.
Jamie told Sophia all of this while pretending he was only bringing more soup.
She sat in the hospital bed and pictured Declan in the suit.
Arms up.
Half an inch higher.
Expecting a flood.
“Will he be safe?” she asked.
Jamie considered lying.
She saw him decide against it.
“As safe as that room allows.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only honest one I have.”
At three o’clock Declan walked into the restaurant wearing her work on his body.
Anton Sorin noticed the suit before he noticed the men behind him.
He was older than Declan had expected up close.
Silver at the temples.
A face that had learned patience the hard way.
“You dressed for peace,” Sorin said.
“I dressed because a woman refused to let me do otherwise.”
Sorin’s mouth moved.
“A tailor with authority.”
“You have no idea.”
They sat.
The papers were already on the table.
No drugs through the port after the first of the year.
No territory taken under cover of the other man’s grief.
Shared notice before either family spoke to the city.
It was not goodness.
It was legitimacy attempted in small and verifiable steps.
Declan read every line twice.
Sorin did the same.
Nolan Callahan sat to Declan’s right with a pen he did not need.
He had opposed the meeting in careful language for weeks.
Too soon.
Too exposed.
Too much trust placed in an old enemy.
Now he smiled at Sorin across the table.
The smile was correct in every detail.
It did not reach his eyes.
Declan signed first.
Sorin signed second.
The room exhaled in a way no one acknowledged.
Sorin leaned back.
“Now we discuss why someone wanted this paper unsigned.”
Declan went still.
“My men did not shoot your tailor,” Sorin said.
“She is not my tailor.”
“She was shot beside you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is to the men who planned it.”
Sorin folded his hands.
“The rooftop man was not mine.”
“The planted shell casing said otherwise,” Jamie said.
“A casing is easy to plant.”
Sorin looked at him without offense.
“My second man was found that morning with his throat threatened and his family named.”
Jamie frowned.
“What second man?”
“The one in your footage.”
The silence changed.
Declan understood first.
Someone had placed Sorin’s man on that rooftop to be seen.
Someone had wanted the camera to find him.
Someone had wanted Declan to walk into Thursday already bleeding and certain of his enemy.
Sorin said, “I came here because I did not order it.”
Declan studied him for a long time.
“I believe you.”
Nolan shifted in his chair.
“You believe him quickly,” Nolan said.
“I believe the timing,” Declan said.
Sorin nodded once.
“Then we have a problem inside one of our houses.”
“Or both,” Declan said.
“Or both,” Sorin agreed.
They shook hands without warmth.
It was more useful than warmth.
It was acknowledgment.
Outside, the sleet had stopped.
Declan stood under the awning in the Thursday suit and called the hospital.
Sophia answered on the second ring.
“It is done,” he said.
“Did the seams survive?”
“The truce did.”
She closed her eyes.
“And Sorin?”
“He did not shoot you.”
“How do you know?”
May you like
Declan looked back at the restaurant door where Nolan was laughing at something Jamie had not said.
“Because someone worked very hard to make me think he did.”
