Chapter 8 - SIX WOMEN BEHIND A TABLE
The photograph showed six young women standing behind a long cutting table.
Mom was third from the left.
Her hair was dark, her back straight, and one hand rested proudly on the midnight-blue fabric that would become the gown.
Lucille stood beside her holding a paper pattern.
Martha held the shears.
Helen wore a pincushion around her wrist.
Ruth stood at the end, her damaged hand resting against a pile of satin.
The sixth woman was Rose Patterson, the fitting assistant Mom had initially forgotten.
On the reverse, someone had written:
Winter Collection Workroom, September 1984.
The image had been stored inside a file labeled MAINTENANCE.
“Maintenance,” Mom repeated when she saw it.
Then she laughed.
The people who created beautiful things had been filed beside repairs.
The payroll ledgers confirmed every name.
Production cards showed individual assignments.
Fitting notes contained Mom’s initials beside corrections.
More importantly, Sophie found eleven additional garment records from the same collection.
The gowns had not all disappeared.
Three remained in Mercer & Reed storage.
Two had been donated to museums.
One was owned by the Mercer family.
Another had been sold at auction five years earlier for sixty thousand dollars.
Mom stared at the sale record.
“I earned seventy-eight dollars for that week.”
Hannah’s face tightened.
“The store cannot retroactively change wages from forty-one years ago.”
“No,” Mom said. “But it can stop pretending Charles made everything alone.”
The archive also contained Lucille’s complaint letter.
She had requested formal recognition for the workroom and fair consideration for design positions.
A response from management called her request “disruptive to the collaborative spirit.”
Two weeks later, she was transferred to alterations.
Martha’s personnel card described her as “difficult with authority.”
Ruth’s noted that her disability limited advancement.
Helen was dismissed after missing work to care for a sick child.
The documents proved erasure had not happened accidentally.
Their names were omitted because acknowledging their skill would have challenged the hierarchy that kept them underpaid.
Hannah promised a full report.
The store’s attorney became involved the next day.
He wanted Mom to sign a release before the revised display opened.
She read only the first page.
“What does this prevent me from saying?”
The attorney smiled.
“It merely avoids misunderstanding.”
“Then explain it without hiding behind words.”
The release barred her from making claims about compensation, discrimination, or ownership.
Mom pushed it back.
May you like
“No.”
For the second time in forty-one years, Mercer & Reed had underestimated the strength inside that answer.
