I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 36
We drove out of Manhattan, following the Hudson into New Jersey.
The skyscrapers gave way to low-slung warehouses. Storefronts and neon signs were replaced by rusting fire escapes. Some of the red-brick buildings in Paterson’s old factory district had been turned into apartments. Others had their windows boarded up, faded garment-company signs still clinging to the walls.
Julien parked in front of an old silk mill.
Lengths of cotton hung drying in the yard, lifting in the wind like rows of unpainted flags.
An old man sat on the loading platform out back.
His right hand was curled against his knee. In his left, he held a piece of blue chalk, drawing lines across a scrap of cloth.
I recognized Paolo from twenty yards away.
Inside the old factory were a dozen cutting tables. Several retired workers were turning discarded hotel bedsheets into uniforms for shelters. There were no brand labels. No cameras. This was nothing like the refuge for failures my family had described.
It looked more like a real workshop, grown from ruins.
He looked up and smiled. “Little Clara. So you finally came to collect your own thread.”