On Monday mornings, Rosa Ferrero was at work before the warmth of the coffee had quite left the kitchen.
She had pushed the two breakfast plates to the edge of the sink and pulled the table beneath the window. The light fell better there, she said. Pietro knew only that when she brought out the flat box where the pins slept, he could no longer climb onto his favorite chair. The midnight-blue dress occupied his place. It spilled from the table like thick water, and his mother held it with an elbow while looking for thread.
Pietro sat on the floor between the sideboard and the unlit stove. He had been given things that cost nothing: three empty spools, a piece of brown lining, and a scrap of flowered cotton too small for a sleeve. He stood the spools upright and ran the cloth between them. It was a street, then a tunnel, then a merchant’s table selling only red things. When a spool rolled beneath the sideboard, he flattened onto his stomach to retrieve it, nose in the smell of dust and wax.
“Not that one,” Rosa said.
Her hand came down without her eyes leaving the hem she was basting. Pietro had taken a spool still full of thread, dark green, almost black.
“Why?”
“Because it’s in use.”
“The others are in use too.”
“The others have already been used.”
He considered the difference. Many things in the house were like that. His father’s shoes were still in use, and his own lasted until his big toe made a bump. Soap lasted until it became a sliver stuck onto the new bar. Newspapers were used twice: first by Cesare, reading them in the evening with narrowed eyes, then by Rosa, spreading them beneath pieces she feared staining.
The green spool was large and smooth, the thread running around it without a knot. Pietro rolled it between his palms.
Rosa finally set down her needle.
“Pietro.”
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