We picture the seamstress alone at her machine, the writer alone at the page, and we call the result hers, as if a made thing had one maker.

But I had watched Franny’s shop long enough now to know better.

Every garment that left that door left with a dozen hands in it — the customer who described what they needed, the friend who’d recommended the shop, Lottie’s eye, Yusuf’s steam, the peppermint Franny gave a fretting bride, the green chair where a nervous mother-of-the-bride had sat and been calmed.

Nothing whole is ever made by one person.