I took a torn thing and made it whole and set it down finished, and then another, and the pile of done grew against the pile of undone, and somewhere in the ruining and the mending I stopped being able to tell whether I was fixing the clothes or the clothes were fixing me.

The whole trade, I was learning, is just that.

You take the thing that is torn, and you do not throw it away, and you do not pretend it was never torn.

You sit with it under a good light until you understand how it wants to be held together, and then you hold it there, and you make it last.

Chapter 8 — Deja and Bo