On a scrap of paper, she wrote the date of Hannah’s birth.
Then she added:
For Hannah. For whatever comes.
She folded the note twice.
No one saw her do it.
For the first five years of Hannah’s life, Greta was her favourite person.
Her grandmother’s apartment offered things her parents’ house did not.
There was a sewing machine with a metal foot pedal that Hannah was forbidden to touch.
There were drawers filled with coloured buttons.
There was a kitchen stool from which Hannah could watch the trams pass the corner.
There were tins that once held biscuits but now contained needles, buttons, postcards, or coins.
And there was Greta herself, who rarely seemed hurried.
When Hannah was three, Greta taught her to roll dough between her palms.
When she was four, they planted beans in old yoghurt containers on the windowsill.
When she was five, Greta showed her how to sew two pieces of cloth together using a large blunt needle.
The stitches were uneven.
Greta praised her patience.
Hannah preferred being praised for talent.
“Am I good at sewing?”
“You’re learning.”
“Is that good?”
“Very.”
“Am I better than you?”
“Not yet.”
Hannah frowned.
“When will I be?”
“When you stop asking and keep practising.”
Hannah considered this unacceptable.
Greta laughed.
Their afternoons were ordinary.
They went to the park, visited the market, fed crumbs to ducks until a sign appeared asking visitors not to do so, and stood at the windows of shops Hannah liked.
Greta rarely purchased anything spontaneously.
If Hannah admired a toy, her grandmother suggested looking at it again on their next visit.
If Hannah wanted sweets, Greta asked whether she had finished her lunch.
If Hannah complained that she was bored, Greta gave her a task.
At five, Hannah considered this an entertaining game.
At ten, she found it irritating.
By thirteen, she considered it evidence of a serious personality defect.
The first real division between Hannah and Greta developed around birthdays.
Hannah’s ninth birthday fell on a Wednesday.
Her parents gave her a bicycle.
Her uncle Martin sent a gift card.
Her grandparents on her father’s side gave her a silver bracelet in a jewellery box.
Greta arrived carrying a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with red string.
Inside was a hand-sewn pencil case made from dark blue fabric.
Hannah held it up.
There was a tiny yellow star embroidered near the zip.
“Did you make it?”
Greta smiled.
“Of course.”
Hannah examined it.
“Thanks.”
She placed it beside the other presents.
Greta noticed that the girl did not open it again.
Later, while Claudia washed dishes, Greta stood beside the kitchen counter.
“She didn’t seem very pleased.”
Claudia glanced toward the living room.
“She’s nine, Mum.”
“I know how old she is.”
“She’s excited about the bicycle.”
“Of course.”
Greta folded the red string and placed it in her handbag.
Claudia watched her.
“You don’t have to make everything yourself, you know.”
Greta looked up.
“There’s nothing wrong with a handmade present.”
“I didn’t say there was.”
“You sounded as though you did.”
Claudia sighed.
“Mum, sometimes children just want what the other children have.”
“And sometimes they don’t know the value of what they already have.”
Claudia turned off the tap.
“She’s a child. You don’t have to make every birthday into a lesson.”
Greta did not answer.
She had spent several evenings making the pencil case.
She had chosen the fabric because Hannah liked blue.
She had embroidered the star because the girl once told her that she wanted to travel to space.
Greta knew that Hannah would eventually outgrow the pencil case.
She had not expected gratitude to last forever.
Still, she had hoped the girl would like it.
When she returned home, she sat at the kitchen table and examined the rough skin around her fingernails.
Then she opened the notebook in which she recorded her sewing orders.
She had earned eighty-six euros that month from repairs.
She calculated her expenses.
On Friday, she deposited forty euros into the savings account.
She did not purchase herself a new winter coat, although the lining of the old one was beginning to tear.
Instead, she repaired it.
As Hannah grew older, she became increasingly aware of how differently other grandparents behaved.
Emilia’s grandmother paid for dance lessons.
Another friend’s grandfather took the family skiing every winter.
A girl in Hannah’s class received a new laptop for her sixteenth birthday.
Greta continued giving practical presents.
A scarf.
A book.
A small box of homemade biscuits.
Once, a carefully repaired secondhand easel.
Hannah could not remember the last time Greta had given her money.
When she complained, Claudia usually defended her mother.
“Grandma doesn’t have much.”
Hannah rolled her eyes.
“She has enough to buy herself things.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know. Things.”
Claudia looked at her daughter.
“She lives on a pension, Hannah.”
“Then why does she keep all those boxes of money?”
“What boxes?”
“The metal boxes under her bed. I’ve seen them.”
“Those are probably old sewing things.”
“One of them has coins.”
Claudia shrugged.
“Your grandmother has always kept spare change.”
Hannah found this maddening.
It seemed to her that Greta collected money for the pleasure of not spending it.
She kept jars of coins.
She saved coupons.
She bought discounted bread near closing time.
She collected old newspapers and bundled them for recycling.
She even washed and reused plastic food containers until the lids no longer fitted properly.
When Hannah was fifteen, she decided her grandmother enjoyed depriving herself.
She made the mistake of saying so during Sunday lunch.
Greta was serving potato soup.
Hannah looked at the loaf of day-old bread on the table.
“Why don’t you ever buy fresh bread?”
Greta stopped with the ladle in her hand.
“This is perfectly good.”
