The House of Serendipity

Because along the hem I embroidered a paw print the exact shape and size of our cat s, Schiaparelli. I stitched my mother s favorite forget-­me-­not teacup and my father s lucky scissors. There are two braids, one for me and one for my neighbor Ethel, tied together with our matching best-­friend ribbons. In a delicate chain stitch is our door with its number 7, old cracked paving stones in front, and the year, 1926. I stitched a cinema ticket and a Victoria sponge cake, my copy of Peter Pan and a reel of cotton.

I picked up my suitcase and sewing machine again and started to walk. With every step I was walking farther away from my before life. My life with a ma and pa. A life spent making things together in our tailor s shop. A life where I believed I would become a dressmaker like them one day.

The most important cut in a pattern is the first one. It is irreversible. My life before was like a huge piece of uncut fabric. Pa dying was the first cut in my pattern. Ma got sick too, but then she got better. Well, almost better. But then she had to sell our shop to pay our debts ­another snip and go back to Ireland, to the farm and to my nana, where the air is fresh and her lungs can fully heal. Saying goodbye to her, and not knowing when I would see her again, was a slash across the very seams of me. But I stayed in London because there are more jobs here for girls like me. More opportunities to become what you want to be. And I want to be someone. Someone who can bring my mother home. Someone who won t let go of my dreams. Coco Chanel left her orphanage with just her scissors, and now I am leaving Stepney with my sewing machine. I am alone, cutting my own pattern, making my own life.

The street opened onto an impossibly grand square. There were four mansions, but I knew instantly which one was Serendipity House. It shone brilliantly white in the spring sunshine and, from a distance, seemed to be encased in its own private snowstorm. I squinted and realized what appeared to be snow was actually thousands and thousands of tiny pink cherry blossom petals swirling in the wind. Something in my heart lifted. The main door was vast, and a woman in an old-­fashioned wool suit holding a carpet bag stood in front of it. I saw the sign for the servants entrance and looked back across the square to where I had c