The Gown(8)

First things first. She unfolded the board, setting it close to the desk, and plugged in the iron. While she waited for it to heat, she set the larger of her two cases on the bed and extracted her best suit and blouse. Though she’d packed them meticulously, with tissue guarding every fold, they had still become creased. The iron was a rather ancient and unreliable-looking device, but a few hesitant passes on the inside hem of her skirt revealed no scorch marks, so she set about erasing the worst of the wrinkles from her garments.

She was too tired and cold to bother with any sort of nighttime toilette. After changing into her nightgown and hanging up the clothes she’d been wearing, she switched off the light and got into bed. Though the sheets were faintly damp, it wasn’t long before she stopped shivering and began to relax into the comforting embrace of the bed.

It was there, waiting for her, as soon as she closed her eyes: a panel of ivory silk, luminous in the late afternoon sun, stretched tight over a frame. Her embroidery frame, right by the window in the atelier at Maison Rébé, just where she had left it.

She considered her progress. The design, a wreath of flowers, was nearly done; it had occupied her mind’s eye for many nights now. Already she’d finished the bourbon roses, their blossoms pale and tender, and the nodding tendrils of honeysuckle winding between their stems. Tonight she would begin the first of the peonies.

There had been an old peony in her parents’ garden, planted long before they had moved into the house, and every May it had produced armfuls of blooms, some of them as wide as a dinner plate, their petals deepening from palest pink to the cerise of the ripest cherries. It had been Maman’s favorite, and hers, too.

Last year she had forced herself to go. To discover if any trace of her family, of their lives, still remained. The people who had taken over her parents’ house had said they knew nothing. They would not let her enter, so she had begged to see the garden. Five minutes in the garden, and then she would leave.

They had killed the peony. They had dug up her mother’s flowers and put in a vegetable garden. They had destroyed every beautiful living thing her mother had planted. They had—

The peony lived on in her memory. She could see it so clearly, its petals glowing and bright and perfect. Unchanged. Whole and alive.

She blinked back her tears. She threaded her needle. She touched her fingertips to the ghostly fabric. And she began again.





Chapter Three


Heather


Toronto, Ontario

Canada

March 5, 2016

Heather? It’s Mom. I’ve been calling and calling.”

“Sorry. Didn’t hear it ringing. What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m just finishing up with my groceries. It’s a zoo. Typical Saturday morning in Toronto. Why?”

“It’s Nan.”

The clamor of the busy store, the chatter and complaints of those hemmed in around her, the clang of carts being marshaled outside, the too-loud din of oldies played on crackling speakers—all withered away. In their place rose a drumbeat, dull and steady, pounding insistently against her breastbone. The sound of her own heart.

“Heather?”

“What about Nan?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry to tell you like this. She died this morning.”

The line was moving forward, so Heather pushed her cart ahead, obedient to the dictates of the queue. It was hard to steer with only one hand. She wrenched the cart in the right direction, her fingers throbbing where they clutched at the handle.

“But . . .” she started. Her mouth had gone dry. She swallowed, licked her lips, tried again. “But Nan was fine the last time I talked to her.”

How long had it been? She usually called on Sundays, but things had been busy at work. Not good busy, just mindless-crap sort of busy, and by the end of the week she was always so tired, and—

“Heather? Are you still there?”

She pushed the cart forward again. “I don’t understand. You didn’t tell me she was sick.”

“I saw her on Wednesday, and she seemed fine enough then. But you know how she hated to admit she was under the weather.”

“I guess,” Heather whispered.

Something was tickling her cheek. She brushed at her face, her fingertips coming away damp with silent, stealthy tears. She rubbed at them with the woolly cuff of her coat, the same stupid coat that didn’t have any pockets. Maybe she had a tissue in her bag.

“What happened?”

“When she didn’t show up for dinner, one of her friends at the Manor checked on her. She was asleep in her chair—the one by the window in her room—and her friend had a hard time waking her up. So they called 911, and then they called us. The doctor said it was pneumonia, the kind that starts as a cold and sneaks up on you. At her age, you know, there isn’t a lot they can do. And we’d talked about it before with her, you know, so we knew she didn’t want it. Any fuss, I mean. So Dad and I stayed with her until . . .”

All last night Nan had been dying, and she hadn’t even known. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Heather. Honey. You know she wouldn’t have wanted you to see her like that. You know that. She was asleep when we got there, so—”