I promised them sweaters. I promised her maroon, even-moss stitch, with an owl on the front—my perfect, measured, even stitches shining through. When he asked for a sweater, I asked him what color he wanted, and he couldn’t respond. I pointed at a spot on his gingham shirt, a muted blue, and told him it would be that color. He laughed at me and said, “How can a color be muted?” I tried to explain. I couldn’t. We laughed some more.

I promised her I would come back, promised a smile and the biggest hug imaginable. I promised her we’d live together, and we asked him to join us. He said he would. I promised I’d be home someday. I promised.

I promised even stitches and crisp measurements—tiny v’s and thick, squishy fabric. She picked cushy, soft acrylic, and I picked fingering weight wool for him. It’s what I’m good at. I fail and fail and fail at everything else, but my stitches never split and my fabric never crinkles. It stays flat, grows long, stays even—stays stable. It evens me out, stabilizes me for the briefest of moments as I twist the threads together around my fingers. I turn something old into something new, create something out of seeds and fur and strings. I can undo it just as quickly.

I promised myself I would do this work, write this essay, do the math, calculate the life I want and set the numbers straight. I always forget I’m bad at math, that I’m good only at Chilean complaining. My beloved Abuelita handed it down to me, throwing it through the chest of my father into my hands, leaving a string connecting the two of us through his heart.

I begged myself to keep my own promises, to keep my own secrets, to cradle the fabrics in my hands and then set them down finally. I begged myself to stop the weaving, the winding, the spellbinding hypnotism of turning something old into something new, something borrowed into something blue. But old wives’ tales will never apply to me—I’m nothing like that. I’m nothing but twine and burlap and cotton and wool and linen; I’m not even bamboo. I’m the scratchy acrylic that you buy at the thrift store for $10 and then discard after working with it for a few hours.

I’m the yarn that comes from a store that burned down, plied all wrong, with seed pods twisted into the fibers so that it cuts your hands while you work with it. Yet when I used to work with it, my stitches were always stable, despite the blood that caked all over the fabrics. But I promised them sweaters.

I promised them perfection in the one area I can create it. I promised. I promised. I promised. The stitches will be even, the colors immaculate, free of knots and pills and snags. They will be the best I’ve ever done. One for each of them, one for the other love of my life, one for my sister, one for my mother, one for whoever wants one.

But let me explain the sweater curse to you: old wives’ tales tell that when you make a sweater for a partner, they will leave you. When you make one for a friend, they may as well leave you too. I promised them sweaters, and I will deliver them sweaters. And as they fade away, I hope they cherish them, hope they squish the fabric in their hands and smile at the softness and the flawless of the stitches. I hope they feel that I loved them all along, that the threads bent to my will through love alone. I love you. I love you. I love you. I promised.

Elita Evans is a fiction and narrative essay writer who specializes in magical realism and storytelling.

I Wanted to Write to Them

Four Poems

The Next Ark