Ready Thursday, the tag said. The chair remained in the workshop for years after its owner died on Tuesday. Nobody wanted to dispose of it, and nobody knew which relative should receive it.
New repairer Amal checked the original order. The chair was intended for a granddaughter moving into her first room. Its owner had asked for the loose leg to be fixed and the worn armrests left alone because she liked them.
Amal found the granddaughter through a letter retained with the order. She had moved several times since and assumed the promised chair was lost. She asked whether the old repair still held before asking anything about its appearance.
Amal checked every joint and issued a new collection note, keeping the original tag inside an envelope. Thursday no longer described the day the chair would leave, but it recorded a plan interrupted rather than abandoned. The granddaughter collected it on a Saturday, carrying away the repaired object and the small piece of paper that explained why someone had prepared it for her.