"Sixty Tailor Shop"
My stepmother asked me to give up my job recruitment quota to my sister.
I gave in.
On March 17, I reported to the state-owned tailor shop and repaired the Feiren sewing machine in the corner that had been gathering dust for three years.
The next day, a neighbor sent a tattered military uniform, saying it belonged to his son and it would be a pity to throw it away.
On the third stitch, a picture flashed before my eyes - snow. Trenches. The young soldier stuffed the blood-stained letter home into his breast pocket.
The military uniform was kept at the bottom of the box for twenty years. The aunt is illiterate and has no idea what is written in the letter.
I tuck the letter into the fabric.
On the day I picked up the clothes, the aunt touched the patched chest and said with red eyes: "Girl, for the first time in twenty years, I feel that he is walking more firmly."
A few days later, a man wearing a gray and blue tunic suit came to the store.
The cuffs were frayed. He saw me mending cotton pants for children and asked, "Who did you learn the stitching technique from?"
"My master."
He was silent for a long time.
Walking to the door, he suddenly turned around.
"Is she... Still there?"
---
Old friends don't ask about the date of their return, but tailors only mend old clothes.
She sewed the unfinished words into the fabric stitch by stitch.
