The Rules of Mending (fiction). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annam Manthiram

THE RULES OF MENDING

Contemplating Attachments by Sandi Lovitz © 2013

t was only after I left India—after I left my mother—that I began to sew. My mother was a popular tailor in south India. Wealthy matriarchs commissioned her when they needed a fashionable blouse for their daughters ’ bride-viewings. My mother then sewed their wedding trousseau, and later, their maternity salwar kameez, a loose-flowing tunic and pant set. She also salvaged remnants and made outfits for the little children and babies. There were always more women, more weddings, more

babies. She never suffered in her busiI ness. Her sewing gave us food and shelter; her sewing gave me Bopal.

Never mistake the power of the thimble. Even the best seamstress will have cause for one; else she