Chapter 6 - THE LOCKED ARCHIVE ROOM
Sophie called three days later.
She had searched the digital archive and found almost nothing.
The official records listed Charles Mercer as designer and two male executives as collection supervisors.
No seamstresses appeared.
“The old paper files might contain more,” Sophie said. “But they’re stored in a basement room that hasn’t been cataloged.”
“Can you access it?”
“My manager says there isn’t time.”
Mom heard the call from her kitchen chair.
“Ask whether the payroll books survived.”
Sophie did.
Her request was denied.
The store had entered its busiest holiday period. Management wanted the incident resolved through a revised plaque crediting Mom alone.
Mom refused.
“I will not stand on the wall while the others remain beneath it.”
Sophie began searching during lunch breaks.
She found boxes labeled by year, but 1984 was missing.
Then a retired maintenance worker remembered records being moved after a pipe burst.
The boxes had been placed in an unused tailoring room on the seventh floor.
Management claimed the room was unsafe.
Sophie requested a supervised inspection.
Again, they refused.
That evening, she sent me a photograph.
The door was locked with a modern electronic panel.
“They are not merely disorganized,” I said. “They don’t want this reopened.”
Mom folded a dish towel.
“Perhaps they are ashamed.”
“Or afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Finding proof that the store profited from work it refused to recognize.”
Mom considered this.
“We were paid.”
“Fairly?”
“No.”
“Did they promise anything else?”
Her hands stopped.
For the first time since the store visit, she looked away.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing that matters now.”
“It matters to you.”
She rose slowly, using the table for balance.
“I am tired.”
The conversation ended.
But the following morning, I found an old wooden sewing box on her counter.
Inside were spools, rusted scissors, and a folded envelope bearing the Mercer & Reed logo.
The letter was dated October 1984.
It congratulated Evelyn Morrow on the success of the winter collection and promised that her work would be considered for a permanent design position.
No position had followed.
At the bottom, someone had written by hand:
May you like
You do beautiful work, Evelyn. Be patient.
She had waited forty-one years.
