Chapter 5 — Twelve Dollars and a Second Chance

The weekend market occupied a converted warehouse three blocks from Georgia State University.

Music poured from portable speakers. Vendors sold used records, handmade jewelry, candles, painted furniture, and clothes imported from New York.

Evelyn stopped just inside the entrance.

In Bellwood, a busy shopping day meant ten people gathered outside the general store.

Here, hundreds of customers moved between the stalls.

Nathan watched her expression.

“Still think I’m crazy?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“You said you can sew.”

“I can.”

“And I know where we can buy old denim jackets for two dollars each.”

“That doesn’t mean anyone will buy what I make.”

Nathan looked at the crowd.

“There’s one way to find out.”

He loaned her twenty dollars for supplies. Evelyn wrote the amount in a small notebook and made him sign beside it.

“You don’t trust me?” he asked.

“I trust numbers.”

He grinned.

“I think I like you.”

They spent the afternoon searching thrift stores. By evening, Evelyn had six denim jackets, scraps of lace, colored thread, and a box of beads.

Nathan found her a temporary bed in the apartment he shared with his cousin’s family. Evelyn insisted on sleeping on the couch and paying rent once she earned enough.

For two nights, she barely slept.

She cut sleeves, reshaped collars, and stitched flowers across faded denim. Each jacket was different. One had white daisies over the shoulders. Another had crimson roses climbing the back.

On Saturday, they rented half a table at the market.

Three hours passed.

No one bought anything.

People stopped to look, complimented Evelyn’s work, then walked away.

By noon, the vendor beside them had sold fifteen pairs of earrings.

Evelyn folded a jacket for the fourth time.

“I made a mistake.”

Nathan leaned against the table.

“Which one?”

“People like the designs, but they don’t want what I chose for them.”

“So let them choose.”

Evelyn looked at him.

Nathan pointed toward a teenage girl wearing a plain denim vest.

“What if she could pick the flowers, colors, and placement?”

Evelyn immediately understood.

She turned one of her sketches over and wrote in large letters:

CUSTOM EMBROIDERY — YOUR JACKET, YOUR DESIGN — $12

Nathan borrowed a marker and added:

READY IN ONE HOUR

The teenage girl returned ten minutes later.

“You can put sunflowers on this?” she asked, removing her vest.

“Where do you want them?”

“Across the back.”

“What color?”

“Yellow and orange.”

Evelyn accepted her first twelve dollars.

By midafternoon, seven jackets waited beside her sewing machine.

Nathan called customers from the aisles, modeled a jacket much too small for him, and convinced a group of college students that matching embroidered initials would make the perfect sorority gifts.

They earned ninety-four dollars before the market closed.

Evelyn repaid Nathan’s twenty-dollar loan, covered the table fee and materials, then divided the remaining profit.

Nathan pushed half of it back.

“You did the sewing.”

“You found the market, bought supplies, and brought customers.”

“That doesn’t make us equal.”

“It makes us partners.”

Nathan studied her for a moment.

“All right. Partners.”

During the next week, Evelyn worked from morning until midnight.

Nathan found a dorm resident willing to rent them a storage closet as a temporary workshop. He negotiated cheaper materials. Evelyn created a catalog and accepted custom orders.

By Thursday, she had enough money to pay two weeks of rent and buy a secondhand sewing machine.

For the first time in either of her lives, every dollar in her pocket belonged to her.

That night, she and Nathan sat behind their market table sharing a bowl of takeout noodles.

“You never told me why you came to Atlanta so early,” Nathan said.

Evelyn looked down at her fork.

“My family wanted my scholarship.”

“Wanted you to give it up?”

“They tried to transfer it to my sister.”

Nathan stopped eating.

“That’s fraud.”

“It’s normal to them.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

His immediate anger surprised her.

Daniel had always explained why she should tolerate cruelty. Nathan did not ask what she had done to cause it.

“Is that why the man at the laundromat was following you?” he asked.

Evelyn looked up.

“What man?”

Nathan nodded toward the other side of the warehouse.

Daniel stood beyond the glass entrance doors.

He wore the same charcoal suit from the wedding, though the jacket was wrinkled and his face looked exhausted.

When he saw Evelyn, he walked inside.

Nathan rose.

“Do you know him?”

“Unfortunately.”

Daniel stopped in front of the table.

His gaze moved from Evelyn to the shared bowl of noodles, then to Nathan.

“So this is why you ran away.”

Evelyn remained seated.

“I didn’t run away. I left.”

“You abandoned your family on Clara’s wedding day.”

“Clara wanted Daniel. Clara got Daniel.”

His mouth tightened.

“The ceremony never happened.”

Evelyn felt nothing.

Not relief. Not satisfaction.

Only annoyance that he had crossed hundreds of miles to bring his chaos back into her life.

“Then you wasted a very expensive dress.”

Daniel leaned over the table.

“Pack your things.”

“No.”

“I bought two bus tickets. We’re leaving tonight.”

Nathan stepped between them.

“She said no.”

Daniel looked him up and down.

“This is none of your business.”

“It became my business when you started ordering my partner around.”

“Partner?”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed.

“You've known her for less than a week.”

“And I already know she can speak for herself.”

Daniel reached for Evelyn’s arm.

She moved back, but he caught her wrist.

“Your father is furious. Clara has been crying for days, and half of Bellwood thinks you disappeared with a stranger. You will come home and fix this.”

Evelyn stood.

“I didn’t forge my signature.”

Daniel froze.

“I didn’t push anyone into the quarry channel. I didn’t lock an adult woman inside a bedroom, and I didn’t abandon a bride at the altar.”

She pulled against his grip.

“You created every problem waiting for you in Bellwood.”

Daniel tightened his hand.

Nathan shoved him away.

Daniel stumbled into the neighboring table, sending a display of bracelets crashing to the floor.

The market manager hurried toward them.

“What’s going on?”

“This man is trying to take me against my will,” Evelyn said clearly.

Daniel’s face went pale.

“I’m her fiancé.”

“No, you’re not.”

Evelyn turned to the gathering crowd.

“He was supposed to marry my sister this morning.”

Whispers erupted.

Daniel’s authority collapsed under a dozen disapproving stares.

He straightened his jacket.

“Evelyn is confused. We’ve been promised to each other for years.”

“I promised nothing.”

“You loved me.”

“In another life, perhaps.”

The words escaped before she could stop them.

Daniel stared at her.

The anger left his face.

In its place appeared something much more dangerous.

Recognition.

“Another life,” he repeated.

Evelyn’s pulse stumbled.

Daniel stepped closer.

His voice dropped to a whisper meant only for her.

“You died in a hospital room.”

The noise of the market faded.

Evelyn could not move.

Daniel continued.

“There were six children around your bed. Clara was wearing a pearl necklace.”

No one else could know that.

Not her father.

Not Mr. Brooks.

Not even Clara.

Daniel’s eyes filled with desperate triumph.

“I remembered everything the morning after you left Bellwood.”

Evelyn’s stomach turned cold.

Daniel had come back too.

He reached for her again, but this time his hand trembled.

“Those children were mine and Clara’s,” he whispered. “But this time can be different.”