Small Repairs for a Vanishing Man

How it begins

His sleeves had become too short again.

Emil laid the shirt on the kitchen table and measured them twice. The fault was not in the cloth. He had removed an inch on Monday, then another half inch yesterday, because the cuffs kept brushing against the cardboard boxes beside his chair.

The boxes belonged to Sonia.

Christmas things, mainly. A broken lamp. University books that had traveled farther since graduation than their owner had.

He unpicked the right cuff.

Downstairs, someone tested the buzzer for the old shop. Three impatient bursts.

Emil waited. People sometimes mistook the dark window for a business that might still solve a small problem.

The buzzer sounded again.

"Dad?"

He put the shirt under a newspaper.

Sonia climbed the stairs carrying a bag of oranges and the face she used when she intended to be briskly kind. She stopped at the doorway.

"Where's the other chair?"

"In the bedroom."

"Why?"

He looked at the boxes.

She looked at the table.

For a moment they were both nearly honest.

Sonia picked up his coat from the hook. The hem had risen above his knees.

"Have you lost weight?"

"No."

"These clothes don't fit."

"They fit the room."

She laughed because she thought it was a joke. Emil smiled because allowing that was easier than explaining.

Then she saw the suitcase.

It stood open beside the radiator, lined with newspaper, holding the brass handles from the shop drawers.

"Are you going somewhere?"

He followed her gaze.

He had been cleaning the handles one by one. There was no longer enough space on the table to lay them out.

"No."

Sonia set down the oranges very carefully.

"Please don't say no because you think I'll make a fuss."

Emil looked at the shirt beneath the newspaper.

The cuff had almost no seam allowance left.

For the first time, he wondered whether making things smaller had been the wrong repair.