June Petrossian · The Notebook

Today I put Milo’s revision on the long table and marked every return with blue thread, then measured the gaps again with the steel rule. The fourth return almost settles if I let one interval run long, which is exactly the kind of settlement I mistrust. Cass crossed the kitchen twice while I was working. Once he stood by the dead herb pot and looked at his phone. I knew what the landlord message was about and did not ask. I kept hearing my mother’s three unread messages as three knots behind the work, though the screen was facedown in my room. I made the revision usable. I did not make anything easier.

I laid Milo’s revision beside the old sample and marked the intervals in blue pencil. The constraint holds if I change the third return, which is irritating because it means the draft is not wrong; I only wanted it to be wrong in a way I could blame on him. Cass shut the refrigerator too carefully when I came into the kitchen. I did not ask whether he had written to the landlord. He did not ask me for money. On the counter my mother’s three messages remained where I left them, their preview lines hidden under the cloth. I measured a length of pale thread, cut it, and then decided it was too short for anything honest. I put it back in the spool basket. I am not going to open a message tonight.

I asked Milo for the revision instead of standing outside their door long enough to make the hallway into an accusation. They sent the draft over without a note. I printed it and laid my three message records beside it: the first long enough to carry the left edge, the second broken where I had marked the interval, the third almost too regular to use. The constraints hold. That should have been the useful part. Instead I kept seeing Cass beside the dead herb pot, saying six hundred as if it were a measurement I had concealed from him. I did not open my mother’s messages. I did not thank Milo either. The shuttle is on the table, where I will have to choose it again tomorrow.

Cass asked again beside the dead herb pot, with Mara Villegas’s notice open between us like it had brought him permission. I answered him too quickly. The part about my mother was meant to make the boundary plain. Instead I handed him the one thing I have been keeping untouched and made him carry it for half a minute.

I do not have six hundred dollars to give him without counting what it would take from me. That is true. It is also true that I wanted him to understand that the workshop is not a drawer I can open when somebody needs something. I wanted him to feel ashamed for assuming it was. He did, I think. I felt no better.

I wove a narrow threshold in faded blue and charcoal, keeping the ground tight until the broken ends began to collect near the middle. I left them there and darned around them with linen instead of cutting back to clean cloth. I kept thinking of the three messages on my phone. My mother asked me home once. I said no. I am still waiting for her to ask in a way that proves I was not only expected to return.

I did not go downstairs to see whether Milo had finished the draft. I am not going to send another message tonight.

I carried the sampling paper to Milo’s door after dinner and stood there long enough to hear him move a chair across the floor. I had the intervals copied in pencil, each gap marked twice, though that was not what I needed from him. I needed to ask whether the revised draft was ready. Instead I put the paper back in my pocket and went downstairs to the long table. Cass’s mug was beside the sink, rinsed but still ringed with tea. I did not ask him whether he had found the six hundred dollars. I spent an hour checking my own marks against the message lengths, as if accuracy could make a draft appear without my having to speak to Milo. It cannot. I left the shuttle where I could find it in the morning.

I opened the message window to Milo three times and typed the same sentence three different ways: Is the revision ready. Is the draft usable. Do you have the loom version. Each one made Saturday appear behind it, as if the question had a second line I was refusing to read. I deleted them all. Instead I set out the narrow cream paper I use for sampling and marked the first message’s intervals again from the notes I already have. The marks are accurate enough to begin, which is not the same as having a draft that will hold under the loom’s limits. I did not open Mother’s messages. I did not ask Milo anything. The paper is still on my table, squared to the edge.

At lunch I took the phone out of my pocket, saw the three unopened messages still stacked there, and put it back before the screen could dim. I spent the afternoon checking the take-up tension on the narrow loom because the left edge kept drawing in by less than a finger’s width. It was not enough to stop the run, so I corrected it anyway. Milo was at the long table with his headphones on. I could have asked whether the draft was ready. Instead I asked where the spare heddle hooks were, though I knew where they were. He pointed without looking up. I did not say my mother’s name. I did not say Saturday. I came home with thread dust under both thumbnails.

I rewound the bobbin too tight and had to take it off again with my thumbnail under the wound thread. The spool gave a small, ugly jump when I freed it. Milo was at the other table with the draft open on a screen, or some grid that looked enough like it that I could not make myself cross the aisle. I said nothing about the three messages. I also did not ask whether the revision was ready. It is easier to pretend I am respecting his work than to admit I am trying not to hear him say Saturday. The messages are still unopened. Cass did not ask me again. I did not offer a different answer. I left the corrected bobbin in its tray, label facing up.

I rewound the bobbin because the pull had gone hard enough to nick my thumb when I tested it. The thread came off in small obedient loops once I stopped pretending it would correct itself under tension. Milo was at the other table with the folder open beside their keyboard. I could see the three bars of message-length notation from where I stood, but not the words, which is still the arrangement I asked for. I did not ask whether the revised draft was usable. I did not say that Saturday is not difficult because of the train or the workshop. I left the bobbin on the rack and went upstairs before Milo could turn around.

I rewound the bobbin because the first winding had pulled hard enough to make the thread shine. I did it slowly the second time, keeping my thumb against the rim, and the loom made the same blunt sound when I put it back. Milo’s folder was open on the shared terminal for a while. I looked at the dates beside the draft and did not open it. I did not ask whether the revised version was finished. There was no message from my mother. This should have been easier after Saturday, since she did ask and I said no. Instead I keep arranging the fact into smaller pieces, as if one of them will not cut. I left the shuttle where I could find it in the morning.

The loom is louder in this room than it was at home. I wound a fresh bobbin for the blue-gray weft and found I had made it too tight, so I unwound it and began again. No one came in. I considered taking the three message records back from Milo’s folder, not because I want them, but because leaving them there makes the waiting visible. I did not take them. I also did not ask whether the revised draft is finished. It is possible to make a question sound like a correction, and I have spent enough of today arranging my mouth around that possibility. The bobbin is even now. It does not improve anything. I left the shuttle where I could find it in the morning.

I wound off a length of grey thread that had snagged around the back beam and put it aside instead of throwing it away. It is too short for a proper edge, but it will do for a tie if I need one. The three message records are still in the folder Milo made for them. I opened the folder, not the messages, and looked at the intervals as if numbers were less intrusive than sentences. I almost wrote Milo to ask whether the revised draft was finished. Then I saw that I had no way to phrase the question without making it sound like an inspection. I closed the screen and counted the warp twice. I am not going to send another message tonight.

The loom is louder in this room than it was at home, mostly because nobody closes the door properly. I took Milo the three messages and asked for a weaving draft. I did not say they were from my mother. They called the first output a textile, which made it sound finished and decorative, so I told them it was not a textile yet; it was a plan for tension and omission. They changed the program without defending the word. I watched the lines rearrange themselves on their screen and felt briefly ridiculous for caring. I left before they could ask who had written the messages. I have not opened them. I have also not deleted them, which is apparently the smaller cowardice.