My son took $200 out of my pay for the night I kept his daddy’s shop open until 9:40 so a young airman could wear his dress blues to his grandmother’s funeral. The next morning, while I sat at my machine, he told a bride’s mother, “Mom’s seventy-five. She doesn’t get that this is a business.” Then he slid a power of attorney across his desk.

My husband, Dewey, opened Dewey’s Alterations on SE 29th Street in Del City in 1974. I’ve sewn at the machine in the front window for fifty-two years. When Dewey died three years ago, he left the business to our son, Kent, and the building to me. So now I work for my son. He signs my check every other Friday.

Mondays are my day off, and Kent works the counter by himself. I keep pins in my mouth when I sew, which he says is how I’ll swallow one someday. My casserole dish, with my name on masking tape, has been at his house all summer. On Saturdays, my grandbabies, Paxton and Remi, sit on the cutting table and sort buttons. Kent knows that’s the best part of my week.

That Friday, a little before closing, a young man he told a bride’s mother, “Mom’s seventy-five. She doesn’t get that this is a business.” Then he slid a power of attorney across his desk.

My husband, Dewey, opened Dewey’s Alterations on SE 29th Street in Del City in 1974.

I’ve sewn at the machine in the front window for fifty-two years. When Dewey died three years ago, he left the business to our son, Kent, and the building to me. So now I work for my son. He signs my check every other Friday.

Mondays are my day off, and Kent works the counter by himself. I keep pins in my mouth when I sew, which he says is how I’ll swallow one someday. My casserole dish, with my name on masking tape, has been at his house all summer. On Saturdays, my grandbabies, Paxton and Remi, sit on the cutting table and sort buttons. Kent knows that’s the best part of my week.

That Friday, a little before closing, a young man came in carrying a garment bag as carefully as if it held eggs. He was an airman. Tinker is up the road, so uniforms aren’t unusual in the shop.

“Are you Miss Faith?” he asked. “The lady at Braum’s said to ask for Miss Faith.”

“That’s me, hon.”

“My grandma’s funeral is tomorrow at eleven, in Lawton.”

He’d lost twenty-two pounds in basic training. His dress jacket hung on him like a feed sack. Kent had already gone home, and we were due to close at six.

“Go put it on,” I told him. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

He changed and came out in his undershirt. I pinned the jacket and started making the adjustments. He sat in Dewey’s old chair while I worked, telling me about the grandmother who had raised him. She made him say grace at every meal, he said, even when they were at Braum’s.

I had half a pimento cheese sandwich with me. I handed it over, and it was gone in three bites.

“You must’ve been hungry,” I said.

“I was, ma’am.”

He watched me work for a while. “I’m sorry you have to stay late.”

“It’s all right. You need it for tomorrow.”

At 9:40, he stood in front of the three-way mirror. For a while, he didn’t say anything.

“My mama’s gonna want a picture of me in these,” he said at last. Then he asked, “How much do I owe you, ma’am?”

I wrote “No charge” on the ticket and put his name beneath it: Isaiah T.

“I get paid soon,” he said. “I’ll come back and pay you. I promise.”

“You go bury your grandma, hon.”

I set the alarm at 9:48 and drove home. I didn’t think of it as a business decision. I thought he needed his uniform, and I knew how to fix it.

Saturday morning, Kent had the alarm app open on his phone before I’d even taken off my sweater.

“Nine forty-eight, Mom?”

He held up the ticket.

“And what’s this?”

“A boy needed his uniform for a funeral.”

“That’s a $140 job. Plus the electric.”

A bride and her mother were at the counter waiting on a hem. Kent turned toward the mother as if I weren’t sitting right there at my machine.

“Mom’s seventy-five,” he said. “She doesn’t get that this is a business, not a charity.”

The bride’s mother gave me a little look. My face burned, but I kept sewing. My hands knew what to do even when I didn’t know what to say.

I wanted to tell him that the shop had been his father’s, too. That I had helped keep it going for fifty-two years. Instead, I looked at the hem in front of me and let Kent finish talking.

My next check was $200 short: $140 for the airman’s job and $60 for “the electric.” My name came off the schedule except for Tuesdays. I could have pitched a fit about the check. I didn’t, for the grandbabies.

That is the part I’m a little ashamed to admit. I was more afraid of losing Saturdays with Paxton and Remi than I was angry about losing $200. I told myself I could put up with Kent’s decision for their sake. I also knew he had seen exactly what mattered to me.

The next Tuesday, he called me into the back office. It used to be Dewey’s. Kent slid papers across the desk.

“It’s just for the insurance, Mom. Sign by the little flags.”

I put on my readers. The heading said Durable Power of Attorney. I read it out loud, and Kent stopped smiling.

“A dental chain wants the building,” he said. “Three hundred eighty-five thousand. You don’t need the headache.”

“I’ll read it with Mr. Hendry first.”

“Mr. Hendry’s seventy-eight.”

“He’s three years older than me, son. I trust him.”

Kent leaned back in Dewey’s chair. “Amber and I have been talking. If you’re gonna keep acting like this, maybe the kids shouldn’t spend Saturdays at the shop.”

I sat there with a pin between my lips. Maybe he was right. Maybe I had gotten old and soft and dumb about money. Then I took the pin out.

“I’m not signing a thing I didn’t read with my own lawyer, son.”

I left the papers on his daddy’s desk. Mr. Hendry was out of town until the twentieth, so I didn’t sign. Kent didn’t speak to me for a week unless he was talking about hems.

The Saturday after next, I was taking in Amber’s dress for a wedding. She had brought the kids along because she needed to be there for the fitting. Paxton and Remi were sorting buttons on the cutting table.

The bell over the door rang. Isaiah walked in wearing jeans, with a woman beside him who had to be his mama. She was holding a picture frame.

“I’m looking for Miss Faith,” he told Kent at the counter.

Kent put on his customer smile. “She’s not really working much anymore. Can I help y’all?”

“I’m right here, hon,” I called from my machine.

Isaiah’s whole face lit up. His mama started crying before she said a word. Kent went red to his collar.

“Why don’t we talk in my office,” he said to Isaiah, very quickly.

Something about how quickly he said it made me get up. We all ended up in the back office. Kent sat behind Dewey’s desk. Isaiah and his mama took the two chairs. Amber stood in the doorway with Remi on her hip. I kept my tape measure around my neck.

Isaiah’s mama set the frame on the desk. It showed him at the graveside in his dress blues. They fit him like a glove.

“She fixed this for free,” his mama said. “At ten o’clock at night.”

Kent cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am, we don’t normally do that.”

Isaiah looked at Kent, then at me, then back at Kent.

“Sir, I don’t understand,” he said. “That Monday, I came back and gave you the $140 for the work. You said you’d make sure Miss Faith got it.”

The room went quiet. Kent glanced at me.

“You came back?” I asked Isaiah.

“Yes, ma’am. You told me not to pay you, but I wanted to. I couldn’t leave it that way.”

His mother nodded. “He came back after the funeral. He said he needed to thank you properly.”

Kent shifted in his chair. “I was going to tell you.”

“When?” I asked.

“It was busy. And the job still took time.”

I looked at him. “You took $200 out of my check.”

“I was accounting for the job and the extra electricity. You worked after closing.”

“You took the money from him, too?”

“I didn’t take anything from him. He paid for the alterations.”

“He told you I did them for free.”

Kent rubbed the side of his jaw. “I knew what the ticket said. I also knew you’d stayed late and used the shop. I thought it was fair to account for that.”

His answer didn’t fit the way he’d spoken to the bride’s mother. He had called it charity then. Now it was a charge for electricity and time, even though I had done the work and he had accepted Isaiah’s money.

Isaiah’s mama looked at the picture again. “He came back because he said you were kind to him.”

Kent’s voice tightened. “I’m trying to run a business here.”

“So am I,” I said. “I’ve been doing it since before you were old enough to reach the counter.”

“You don’t have to make this a bigger thing,” he said. “I can put the money back.”

“Why did you take it out in the first place?”

He looked at the ticket, still in his hand. “Because you can’t keep giving things away and expect me to cover it.”

“I didn’t ask you to cover it. I did the work.”

Amber shifted Remi higher on her hip. “Kent, you told me she’d given the job away and cost you money.”

Kent looked toward her. “I said she was giving away work.”

“You didn’t tell me Isaiah paid you,” she said.

He didn’t answer right away. His mother and son were watching him, and so were Amber and the children. Paxton had stopped sorting buttons.

“I should have told you,” Kent said finally.

It wasn’t much of an apology. It was the first thing he’d said that didn’t try to make the money sound like a misunderstanding.

I pointed to the papers still on the desk. “And that power of attorney? You said it was for insurance.”

“I said it would help with things,” he replied. “The buyer is serious. The building’s yours. I thought you’d want me to handle it.”

“You said the dental chain wanted it. You didn’t say I had to sign over authority so you could handle me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He took a breath and looked down at the documents. “I wanted the sale to go through without you stopping it over every detail. You keep saying no before you’ve heard the whole thing.”

“I said I’d read it with Mr. Hendry. That isn’t saying no to reading it.”

His mouth tightened. “I was trying to make it easier.”

“For whom?”

He had no answer that changed what the papers were or what he had said about the building. I wasn’t ready to sign them. I wasn’t going to let the $385,000 figure or his worry about the business push me into signing something I hadn’t reviewed.

“I’m not signing it,” I said. “And I’m not working Tuesdays for you anymore.”

Kent looked up. “You’re quitting over one check?”

“I’m quitting because you took money from my pay, took money from Isaiah, and then tried to make me feel foolish for asking what those papers were.”

“I said I’d put it back.”

“You can put it back because it’s mine. That doesn’t make the rest all right.”

Isaiah’s mama stood. “We didn’t come to start trouble.”

“You didn’t,” I told her. “You came to tell the truth.”

Kent looked at the photograph. “I’ll write you a check for the $200.”

“Good,” I said. “Make it payable to me.”

He did. He didn’t argue about the amount again. I put the check away with the ticket. Isaiah’s $140 had gone to Kent, and Kent had still docked my pay for the job. There wasn’t much left to misunderstand.

Amber waited until the others were heading out before she asked, “Can the kids still come on Saturdays?”

“They’re my grandbabies,” I said. “They can come see me.”

Kent stayed in the office. I didn’t ask him to come out, and he didn’t call me back.

I left the power-of-attorney papers on Dewey’s desk. I wasn’t giving Kent permission to sell my building, and I wasn’t going to keep working for him under those terms. The check was for $200. Isaiah’s uniform was free.