Chương 12
Her voice sharpened.
“That’s the problem.”
I folded my arms.
“What problem?”
“I keep looking for somebody else to blame.”
She looked at me.
“My mother.”
“My childhood.”
“The article.”
“You.”
“Me?”
“You laughed when Emily insulted me.”
I blinked.
Lauren gave a humorless smile.
“See?”
“There it is.”
“Exactly.”
She picked up the towel again.
“I can find a reason for everything.”
“Reasons aren’t absolution.”
“I know that now.”
The dining room went quiet.
For a moment I wondered if someone had heard us.
Then Chloe started talking about a teacher who gave pop quizzes on Mondays, and the normal noise returned.
Lauren lowered her voice further.
“I need to apologize to Emily.”
“Yes.”
“I tried.”
“No, you tried to get a dress.”
She winced.
“I know.”
“That wasn’t an apology.”
“I know.”
I watched her.
“Then apologize.”
She looked toward the doorway again.
“I don’t know how.”
“You’re forty-two.”
“I’m aware.”
“Use words.”
She laughed despite herself.
It disappeared quickly.
“What if she doesn’t forgive me?”
“That isn’t part of the apology.”
Lauren looked at me.
“You really enjoy this.”
“I enjoy you finally understanding the assignment.”
“That sounded like Emily.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Lauren rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t want to make her responsible for making me feel better.”
“Then don’t.”
“What do I say?”
I shook my head.
“You have to figure that out.”
She frowned.
“You’re no help.”
“That runs in the family now.”
When I returned to the dining room, Emily was helping Madison look at something on a tablet.
Their heads were bent close together.
Lauren came in a minute later.
She sat at the far end of the table.
She did not speak to Emily.
Not that night.
I was disappointed at first.
Then I realized restraint might have been the first decent choice Lauren had made in weeks.
She waited.
Three days later, an envelope arrived at our house.
Not a text.
Not an email.
An actual envelope.
Emily found it on the kitchen counter after school.
Her name was written across the front in Lauren’s handwriting.
She looked at me.
“What is this?”
“Mail.”
“Thank you, postal service.”
“I didn’t open it.”
“I assumed.”
She turned the envelope over.
“No return address.”
“You know who it’s from.”
“I recognize the handwriting.”
She stood there for almost a minute.
Then she put it in her backpack unopened.
I did not ask about it.
That required more discipline than I would like credit for.
The envelope stayed in her backpack for two days.
On Friday evening, I found Emily sitting on the garage floor beside a half-finished muslin jacket.
The letter was open beside her.
She heard me and covered it with one hand.
“Privacy.”
“I came for the screwdriver.”
She pointed toward the workbench.
I retrieved it.
Then she said, “Mom.”
I stopped.
“She apologized.”
I turned around.
Emily lifted the letter.
“For real?”
“I think so.”
She sounded annoyed by the possibility.
I sat on an overturned storage bin.
“What did she say?”
“I’m not reading it to you.”
“Okay.”
“She said she knew the comment would hurt me.”
I waited.
“She said that was why she said it.”
Emily folded the paper along the existing crease.
“She told me about Grandma and the diets.”
“I know.”
Her head lifted.
“You know?”
“She told me Sunday.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“It wasn’t mine to tell.”
Emily stared at me.
Then she nodded slowly.
“Good.”
She looked back at the letter.
“She didn’t ask me to forgive her.”
“That sounds promising.”
“She said she’s embarrassed.”
“Also promising.”
“She said she’s embarrassed about being caught, too.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Emily almost smiled.
“She literally wrote that.”
“At least she’s thorough.”
“She said part of her wishes nobody had published the pictures because losing clients was humiliating.”
“That sounds like Lauren.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
Emily picked at a piece of thread on the muslin.
“And she said another part of her thinks maybe she would’ve kept pretending it wasn’t that bad if nobody had.”
I leaned back against the wall.
The garage smelled faintly of steam, fabric sizing, and the motor oil Daniel always promised to store somewhere else.
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I know.”
She refolded the letter.
“I don’t forgive her.”
“That’s allowed too.”
“I don’t hate her either.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“It is.”
She rested her chin on one knee.
“I kind of preferred being mad.”
“Cleaner?”
“Much.”
I nodded.
Anger was easier when the other person refused to become complicated.
Emily put the letter inside her sketchbook.
Then she reached for the muslin.
“Can you hold this?”
I stood.
“What am I holding?”
“The sleeve.”
She handed me one side of the jacket.
“Not like that.”
“I’ve been helping you for four seconds.”
“And already causing structural problems.”
“That seems hereditary.”
She smiled.
We worked for twenty minutes without mentioning Lauren again.
By December, Emily had made a decision about Westbridge.
She accepted the scholarship.
The New York apprenticeship remained open for the summer after graduation, with the possibility of returning during school breaks.
Daniel read the contract three times.
Then he paid an attorney to read it once.
Emily complained about the expense.
Daniel told her this was what fathers were for.
She said fathers were apparently for converting anxiety into professional fees.
He said she was welcome.
The boutique rejection also produced an unexpected result.
Instead of changing the jacket, Emily decided to make a simpler piece that could be produced affordably without pretending it was the same garment.
She started with a cropped wool vest.
Then she hated it.
Then she made another.
Then she hated that one less.
By Christmas, there were five versions hanging in the garage.
Madison came to Austin for a weekend and helped with fittings.
She was not built like Emily.
She was taller, narrower through the waist, and broader in the shoulders.
May you like
The first sample pulled badly across her back.
Emily frowned.
