Nonna’s hands were more bone than flesh, skin stretched thin as parchment. When she
sewed, the needle seemed an extension of her fingers, darting with skeletal precision,
thread pulling tight like sinew. I watched from the floor, certain that if I looked too
closely, I’d see the bones themselves guiding the cloth.

She whispered to the fabric as she worked, words I could never catch, only feel in the
air. Incantations, maybe, or names of women long buried. Each stitch tightened not just
the hem but the lineage, binding me to something I didn’t yet understand.

When the dress was done, she draped it over my shoulders. For a moment, it was
heavy, as if every ancestor pressed their bones against mine. I shivered, and Nonna
smiled with hollow eyes. “It fits,” she said, though I wasn’t sure she meant the dress.