Part 4
Nathaniel stayed beside the water until Lena had passed through the gate.
For nine days he made no approach. Philip kept his calendar full. The blue dress progressed behind a closed workroom door, and Nathaniel avoided asking about it.
On the tenth day, Denise telephoned upstairs. She had learned that Lena had taken leave from Vellori and would not be in for some time.
Nathaniel asked Philip to find out what had happened. Less than an hour later, he had the name of a hospital in the western part of the city.
He reached it at eight that evening.
The waiting area smelled of overheated coffee and floor cleaner. Lena sat beneath a notice about visiting hours, holding her purse against her knees. Her coat was still buttoned.
He lowered himself into the chair beside her.
She looked at him, tried to say something, and leaned into his shoulder instead. He put an arm around her. A cart rattled somewhere behind the doors. He kept his other hand still on her sleeve.
When she could speak, she told him Vera had collapsed the previous morning while making coffee.
“A heart attack. They keep saying they have to wait.”
He gave her a handkerchief.
“She left the pot on the stove,” Lena said. “I keep thinking I ought to empty it.”
Nathaniel listened.
“I was nine minutes late yesterday. Before the call, I spent the whole morning worrying Mrs. Vellori would be upset.” She rubbed the handkerchief between her fingers. “I’m twenty-six. She’s the only person I have left.”
He wanted to offer himself as an answer. He watched the doors instead.
A nurse named Larkin came out and spoke with them. Vera was receiving treatment, but the damage to her heart made the next forty-eight hours particularly uncertain. The nurse explained what she could, then went back through the doors.
Nathaniel stepped into the corridor and found a telephone.
Dr. Samuel Feld arrived ninety minutes later. Ten years before, he had managed Nathaniel’s father’s cardiac care. Nathaniel had called him without rehearsing an explanation, and Feld had listened, asked which hospital, and come.
He consulted the attending physician, reviewed Vera’s tests, and worked with the team to adjust her treatment. Then he stayed.
Near dawn, Lena fell asleep with her cheek against her purse. Nathaniel had not moved when Feld came out at six.
“She’s responding,” the doctor said. “The immediate crisis is over.”
Nathaniel thanked him, then touched Lena’s shoulder.
She woke frightened. He repeated the doctor’s words twice before she understood. She bent forward, covering her face, and he stayed beside her until she could get up.
Vera would remain in the hospital for recovery and observation. They were allowed a short visit before leaving. She looked small in the bed, but when Lena touched her hand, her fingers closed around it.
Outside, the morning sun was bright against the hospital windows. Lena had to stop on the pavement while a delivery truck backed past them.
“You need sleep,” Nathaniel said.
“I’ll go home.”
He pictured the coffee pot waiting in the kitchen.
“There’s a guest room at my house. You won’t have to do anything. I can take you back here afterward.”
She looked up at him.
“I’m not asking you to settle anything between us,” he said.
“I know.”
His house was a narrow, four-story brick building on a quiet street. Inside were worn wooden floors, plain walls, and pictures placed where someone might enjoy looking at them. Lena paused in the hall long enough to examine a small charcoal sketch hung below eye level.
“Third floor,” he told her. “The room at the back.”
She slept six hours.
The smell of onions brought her downstairs in her socks. Nathaniel stood at the stove, wearing an apron and concentrating so fiercely on the saucepan that she waited before speaking.
“I didn’t imagine you doing that.”
“Don’t be impressed. It’s the entire repertoire.”
“What is it?”
“Risotto. My mother taught me. If you want something else, we’ll have to telephone someone.”
They ate at the kitchen table. He had put out a mismatched bowl for the grated cheese.
Lena asked why there was nothing in the house carrying the Aveline name.
“I come here to stop being there.”
After a while she asked about Elise.
“Do you miss her?”
He moved his spoon through the rice left on his plate.
“I miss how I was when we first married.”
She did not press him.
When the dishes were cleared, he asked whether he could show her something. She followed him down to the garden-level studio.
There were two dress forms, a broad table, and lamps attached to adjustable arms. Inez had delivered the blue dress ahead of her estimate. It stood near the window, finished except for a few temporary stitches inside the hem.
Lena stopped on the last stair.
The silver embroidery was so restrained that it disappeared when she moved away from it. She came closer, keeping her hands behind her back.
“When?”
“The Monday after dinner with Vera.”
She circled the form slowly. He waited by the stairs.
“Does it have a name?”
“Vera.”
Lena turned.
“She said I belonged at her table,” he said.
There was a small changing room off the studio. Lena took the dress inside, and Nathaniel stood looking at the empty form until the door opened again.
The shoulder line was right. He had remembered it correctly.
She faced the mirror, lifting her chin a little to inspect the embroidery. Then she turned enough to see the open back. For several minutes neither of them spoke.
“There’s something else,” he said at last. “I want to make the clothes you described. A separate line. Properly made, priced for women who have other things to pay for.”
Lena looked at him through the mirror.
“I want you to lead it.”
She sat down on the nearest chair, careful of the silk.
“I haven’t even been to school.”
“I know.”
“I’ve worked in a shop.”
“You understood the inside of a garment from the pavement. Training can give you methods you haven’t learned yet. It can’t supply that eye.”
She looked down at her hands.
“What happens when people decide I got the work because of you?”
He hesitated. The hesitation made her look up.
“Some will,” he said.
“And when they say I’m sleeping my way into a workroom?”
“Some will say that too.”
“At least you’re not pretending.”
He sat on the edge of the table, farther from her than he wanted to be.
“I won’t sign your work. Your decisions, your credit. That I can promise.”
“I need to think.”
He nodded and left her alone with the mirror.
For the next week she went between the hospital, the apartment, and Vellori, turning his offer over while she washed cups or waited for a train. On Thursday, she came to Aveline through the front door and told him she would do it…
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