Last night, I unraveled all your knitting, balled up the yarn, placed the buttons back in jars. I counted stitches. You told me this was how you learned to sew, how you learned to love to knit—ripping seams, unravelling, remaking.
This was how you taught me to cook—in darkness, blinds closed, all quiet, flour on your nose. What is it, really, that you taste? Nutmeg. Lights back on. Write that down.
We went to the mall and you asked me to count the stitches on sweaters, to search for the seams, to stretch them apart to see how they’d been sewn together.
In med school, my seam ripper was a scalpel. How does the heart work? Take it apart. Count the valves; examine the atria.
I remember our trip to the mall, bewildered associates watching us stretch seams, count stitches, take notes.
Mom saw this morning—yarn balled up, buttons in jars—and was silent sixty seconds before sobbing. I, too, had cried as I unraveled the first hat, but by the third sweater it was your voice counting stitches.
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An earlier version of 'Unravel' appeared at Ad Hoc Fiction.
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