## Getting the Dress Back
I went to Rosa’s studio on a Thursday morning. Ben took the morning off work to come with me, which he offered to do and which I accepted without false pride about needing backup.
My mother was not there. This was intentional on my part. I had told her I would pick up the dress and that I would like to do it without her present. She had objected; I had been polite and clear; she had eventually agreed.
Rosa had the dress out of the box when I arrived. It was on a dress form in her studio, not the completed form with all alterations made, but with the basting marks visible and the cuff half-open, the threads stabilized.
I stood in front of it for a moment.
The right sleeve cuff, at the wrist, had been opened along a seam that ran through approximately two inches of embroidered motif. The threads at the cut were stabilized but disrupted. The botanical pattern — a small cluster of fern fronds curling toward a central stem — was interrupted. The left half of the cluster existed intact. The right half existed but was partially loose, the outline threads separated from the infill.
Two inches of nine months.
I said nothing for a moment. Ben put his hand on my shoulder, briefly, and then took it away.
“What are the options,” I said.
Rosa had clearly been thinking about this. She walked me through them carefully. The first option: remove the cuff entirely on that sleeve, reembroider a new cuff using the same thread (which I still had, because of course I still had it; I save everything), and reattach. This would take time and the thread would not have the same aging as the original — the original had been worked in and had developed a slight character that nine months of handling gives thread — but the motif could be reproduced.