“I’ll Venmo you for it,” she said, shrugging at the jagged crack in the loom my late husband built, “What’s it worth, like, a hundred bucks?”
The offer was more violent than the damage itself.
She saw a vintage prop for her soulless photoshoots; I saw the last, best piece of the man I loved.
She had no idea that in her desperate quest for content, she had already filmed the very evidence that would allow me to take a shuttle to her carefully woven life and pull the thread until it all unraveled.
The Gilded Request: A Knock at the Door
The shuttle flies from my right hand to my left, a swift wooden bird weaving a trail of crimson silk. Click-clack, thud. Click-clack, thud. The rhythm is the beat of my own heart, a meditation I’ve practiced for forty years. My studio, a converted sunroom at the back of the house, smells of lanolin and cedar. Sunlight streams through the large windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, golden fairies. This is my sanctuary. Here, there is only the warp and the weft, the steady creak of the treadles under my feet, and the memory of the man who built this magnificent machine for me.
A sharp, percussive knock on the French doors jars me from my trance. The shuttle clatters to the floor. I see a silhouette framed against the bright afternoon light—all sharp angles, a phone held aloft.
I sigh, my rhythm broken. I slide off the weaving bench and open the door.
“Frances! Oh my god, I’m so sorry to bother you, I know you’re, like, in your zone.”
Tiffany stands there, a whirlwind of neon pink athletic wear and a smile so bright it could power a small city. She’s my neighbor, the one who moved into the Hendersons’ old place a year ago. I know her mostly from the constant stream of delivery boxes on her porch and the perfectly staged photos she takes in her front yard, contorting her body in ways that look deeply uncomfortable.
“It’s fine, Tiffany. What can I do for you?” I ask, my hand still on the doorknob.
Her eyes, wide and expertly lined, bypass me completely and fix on the loom. It dominates the room, a beautiful sculpture of polished maple wood that glows in the afternoon sun. David had called it his masterpiece. He’d spent a year in his workshop, sanding every edge, carving the posts with a subtle leaf motif, making sure every joint was perfect. It wasn’t just a tool; it was a testament.
“That,” she breathes, pointing a manicured finger. “Oh my god, Frances. It’s even more incredible up close. The aesthetic. It’s so… authentic.”
The word hangs in the air, feeling cheap and out of place in a room dedicated to the real and tangible.
“Thank you,” I say simply.
“So, I have the craziest, tiniest favor to ask,” she barrels on, stepping past me into the studio. Her perfume, something cloyingly sweet like burnt sugar, invades my cedar-scented space. “I’m doing a whole series for my followers on, like, homesteading and traditional crafts. You know, getting back to our roots, but, like, cute.” She makes a little frame with her fingers. “And I was thinking, for my ‘Weekend as a Weaver’ post, I need the perfect backdrop. And, well…” She gestures expansively at the loom. “This is it. It’s the vibe.”
I stare at her, then at the loom. My loom. David’s loom. The thought of her perfectly curated, artificial world touching it feels like a violation.
“You want to… take pictures with it?” I ask slowly.
“Not just pictures! A whole photoshoot. A video reel. I need to, like, interact with it,” she says. “Could I maybe borrow it? Just for the weekend? I would be so, so careful. I swear.”
The Weight of Wood and Memory
My breath catches in my throat. Borrow it. The words sound like a foreign language. People borrow a cup of sugar. They borrow a book. They do not borrow a piece of your soul that happens to be shaped like a floor loom.
My gaze drifts over the castle, the high frame that holds the harnesses. I see David’s pencil marks, faint gray lines he never erased, where he’d measured the cuts. My fingers find the beater bar, the heavy wooden comb I swing forward to pack the weft threads into place. It’s worn smooth as a river stone from the motion of my hands, a million swings, a million threads compacted into cloth. It’s a groove my body knows by heart.
“Tiffany, I… I don’t lend it out,” I say, the words feeling inadequate. “It’s very delicate. And it’s… old.”
“Oh, I know! That’s what makes it so perfect! The vintage look is everything right now,” she says, completely missing the point. She runs a hand along the front beam, her acrylic nails making a soft, grating sound against the wood. I flinch.
“It’s not just vintage,” I try to explain, my voice quiet. “My husband, David, he built it for me. By hand. Before he passed away.”
Any normal person would have stopped there. They would have seen the shadow pass over my face, heard the tremor in my voice. They would have understood that they were not asking to borrow an object, but a shrine.
Tiffany’s smile only tightens, her expression shifting from bubbly to professionally empathetic. It’s a mask she puts on, thin as veneer.
“Oh, Frances, that is so beautiful. Truly. It’s a legacy. And that’s exactly why people need to see it! To appreciate it. Think of it as honoring his memory. Sharing his incredible work with, like, two hundred thousand people.”
She frames it as a tribute, a generous act on my part. The argument is so twisted, so deeply manipulative, that it leaves me momentarily speechless. She sees a prop. A thing to be used for clicks and engagement, for brand deals with artisanal yarn companies that probably get their product from a factory in Bangladesh. I see David’s hands, covered in sawdust. I see him beaming with pride the day he carried the last piece into this room. I see the decades of my life’s work held in its frame.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, turning away from her to face the loom myself, as if to shield it with my body. The half-finished silk shawl on the loom, a commission for a wedding, seems to glow with a protective energy.
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