The owner nodded slowly.
The seamstress continued.
"Your mother asked for credit. She wasn't trying to steal the brand."
"I know."
"She wanted people to understand what she'd done."
The owner's eyes filled again.
The older seamstress looked toward her.
"After she left, people stopped talking about it."
The owner was silent.
Then asked, "Do you know whether any original records survived?"
The seamstress hesitated.
For a moment, she seemed uncertain.
Then she nodded.
"Maybe."
The owner sat straighter.
"What do you mean?"
The older woman looked toward the doorway.
Then lowered her voice.
"There's an archive room beneath the old administrative offices."
The owner frowned.
"I know about the archive."
"Not the new one."
The seamstress shook her head.
"The old records."
The owner stared.
The woman continued.
"When the company moved offices, some workshop materials were packed separately. Pattern books. Sample cards. Correspondence."
The owner's heart began pounding.
"Where are they?"
The seamstress looked toward her.
"I don't know if they're still there."
She hesitated.
"But I remember a blue ledger."
The owner went still.
"A blue ledger?"
The seamstress nodded.
"Your mother's handwriting was inside."
For several seconds, the owner couldn't speak.
Then she asked quietly, "Would you help me find it?"
The older woman looked at her.
Her eyes filled.
"I've been waiting forty years for somebody to ask."
The archive wasn't glamorous.
It occupied a series of storage rooms in a lower level of an older office building the company still leased near the Garment District.
The official archive had already been relocated to a modern facility with climate-controlled storage and detailed cataloging.
But some historical production records remained in temporary storage because nobody had completed the expensive work of reviewing and classifying them.
Boxes stood on metal shelving.
Old filing cabinets lined the walls.
And yellowing labels identified materials by department, season, or collection.
The owner arrived with the older seamstress, the acting chief executive, the head archivist, and a member of the legal team.
They weren't conducting an impulsive treasure hunt.
The company had to preserve records properly, document provenance, and avoid damaging historical materials.
The archivist explained the process.
Boxes would be inspected systematically.
Contents would be recorded.