The postcard had been tucked inside the sweater’s collar. It was addressed to The Purl Door, but it had never been mailed. Tilda explained that her aunt, an elderly woman named Elizabeth, had passed away in Rutland the month before. Among her belongings, the family found the sweater and the card, and a note that said, “Give these to the knitting shop in Burlington.” Tilda was Beth’s daughter, and my niece.

I sat down on the stool behind the counter, my head in my hands. I had a niece. I had a sister who lived forty minutes away for thirty years, who had walked past my shop window more than once. Tilda said Beth had told her, near the end, that she had stood outside on the sidewalk twice, looking at the sign, but could never make herself open the door. She had been afraid I would still be angry.

I was not angry. I had not been for a very long time. Tilda cried, and I held her, and we stayed that way while the shop bell chimed behind a customer. That afternoon we closed early and drove to Rutland, to a small gray stone in a quiet cemetery. I left a ball of cream wool and a single cable needle at the base of the stone. I told her I had forgiven her, out loud, in the cold.

I finished the second sleeve that winter, with Tilda knitting beside me every Thursday, learning my mother’s rope pattern. In June she had a baby girl, and I placed the sweater, finished at last, in her arms. We named the baby Elizabeth. The little paper tag hangs in a frame by the shop door, where every customer can see it, and I tell them all one thing. Never leave the knitting for tomorrow.