Part 6
I put my hand flat against the kitchen table. The grain beneath my palm gave me something plain and solid to look at while Denise finished.
Her husband had considered approaching Nolan. Before he could decide what to say, Nolan noticed him watching. He dropped what remained of the sandwich and hurried away, looking behind him as he went.
“He didn’t even give my husband time to call his name,” Denise said.
I had loved Nolan for eight years. I couldn’t hear about him hungry and frightened without remembering the young man who had once spent an entire Saturday helping me carry a secondhand desk up three flights of stairs.
That memory didn’t excuse what he had done. It simply remained a memory of someone I had known.
“And Brooke?” I asked.
“The pregnancy wasn’t real. That finally came out.”
I looked up.
“So there was never a baby?”
“No.”
I was relieved for a child who had existed only in other people’s claims. I was also tired of discovering another layer beneath something I had already wanted to put away.
Wherever Brooke and her parents had settled, they were still struggling, Denise said. The family had left town together after selling the house to clear the wedding debts, and Brooke’s search for work after the scandal had come to nothing.
For once, she made no joke.
“They wanted so much,” she said.
“Yes.”
I thought about the borrowed money, the dress, the ballroom, and the house her parents had lost. I thought about Nolan standing at our final dinner, so sure he was moving toward a better life.
“Sometimes people do have to live with what they’ve chosen,” I said quietly.
After the call, I walked into the garden. The lavender was attracting bees, and one of the rose canes needed fastening back to its support. I found the twine and tied it before it could scrape against the window.
The sadness stayed with me for a little while. Then there were other things to do.
A week later, I gave the final presentation for Beacon House to its investor, a Danish man Grant had warned me was difficult to please. I had arranged the drawings, photographs, and material samples in the order I wanted to discuss them, and checked the presentation so thoroughly that I knew it by heart.
The investor listened without smiling. He asked about maintenance, the durability of the upholstery, and whether the lobby would work when a group arrived together with luggage.
I answered each question and showed him the decisions behind it. We had kept the character of the old building while making the rooms comfortable for people who would actually stay there. I wanted him to see that neither purpose had been sacrificed.
When I finished, he stood.
For an unpleasant second, I thought he was leaving.
Then he applauded.
“Miss Whitaker, you’ve understood what this place needed,” he said. “This is precisely what I hoped for.”
Beside me, Grant smiled openly. The investor approved the work without requesting a single alteration.
At the studio afterward, I was putting the samples away when Grant stopped beside the table.
“He’s recommending us for a much bigger resort project in Tuscany.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“He told me your presentation settled it.”
“Everyone worked on this, Grant.”
“They did. And you gave the work its direction.” He leaned against the table, careful not to disturb the samples. “Your salary is going up thirty percent this month. Also, take a week off. A paid week. Go somewhere you don’t have to inspect the lighting.”
I laughed because I wasn’t sure I would know how to stop inspecting it.
“Are you serious?”
“Entirely. I’d like you rested before we start discussing the next project.”
I carried the empty sample crate to its shelf and had to set it down twice because I was smiling too much to pay attention to what I was doing.
The raise mattered. So did the week away. What mattered most was that Grant could tell me what I had done well. My work hadn’t been treated as a favor, a hobby, or an accessory to someone else’s success.
I used the vacation to drive along the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coast. I rented a small car, took the slower roads, and stayed in modest inns where breakfast was served on ordinary plates and somebody could tell me which path led to the water.
I ate local cheese, toast with olive oil, and meals I chose without consulting anyone else. I stopped at galleries when I felt like it. In little dining rooms and shops, I talked with strangers about wine, paintings, and the places they loved.
Nobody needed to know whom I had married or what my grandmother had left me. I enjoyed being a woman traveling with a map, a book, and enough time to take a turning because it looked interesting.
When I returned to Alderhaven, the garden had put out new growth. I unpacked, opened the windows, and made a list of things I wanted to learn.
I enrolled in advanced Italian classes and a pottery workshop. The language might be useful for the next project. The pottery didn’t need a practical justification; I wanted to see what my hands could do with clay instead of a keyboard.
Denise and I kept talking. She told me about her work and her children. I told her about the studio, the garden, and my uneven first attempts at bowls. Nolan and Brooke no longer occupied even the last few minutes of our calls.
One afternoon, I read outside until the light began to leave the page. Through the open kitchen window, I could see the table where my drawings waited for the next morning. There was a cup beside them, a pencil I had forgotten to put away, and a small vase holding flowers I had cut myself.
For years, I had tried to make a home that would persuade Nolan to stay in it. Here, I was learning what I wanted a home to be.
I closed the book and went inside before it grew too cool. Tomorrow there would be work, and later in the week there would be pottery class. I had plans I was looking forward to, and no reason to hurry through them.