Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
You’re curling your hair again. I like the new style,” Madison said, peeking her head through the open doorway to the bathroom the next morning.
“See? I do try things that are out of the ordinary,” Emmy teased.
“Curled hair versus straight hair—don’t shake up the entire universe.”
She wrapped a lock of hair around her curling iron. “It might be insignificant, but it’s a start.”
“Yes, it is a start,” Madison said. “I’m glad to see you putting more effort into yourself. You deserve to feel great. You’re a talented, beautiful woman.”
“Thank you.” Where would she be without her sister?
“I dug this out of the closet for you.” Madison placed a large envelope on the counter. “It’s Mom’s designs.”
Emmy set the curling iron down and ran her hand along the envelope, fighting the urge to dig into it right away. Charlie was coming over, and this wasn’t the time.
“Thank you.” She scooted it out of the way of her makeup and hair products. “Have you looked at them?”
“I flipped through them. They’re mostly rough sketches. They’ve been torn out of a notebook.”
“I can’t wait to look at them.”
They shared a moment of eye contact through the mirror.
“So why are you putting so much effort into yourself this morning?” Madison asked. “Could it be Charlie?” Her eyebrows bobbed annoyingly.
“No comment,” Emmy replied. “But he did text that he’d be over soon.” She shook out her curls, scrutinizing her reflection. “I wore my new shirt yesterday, so I don’t have anything nice now.”
Madison looked thoughtful and then stepped into the bathroom and linked arms with her. “I’ve got an idea.”
They went down the hall and into their dad’s bedroom.
He was sitting in the chair in the corner, reading—the way he’d started every day since Emmy was a girl. But this time, he wasn’t reading a novel.
“What’s that?” Emmy walked over to view the stack of paperwork in his lap.
He got up, turned the papers face down on the nightstand, and set his pen on top, his gaze moving between Emmy and Madison. “I was hoping to wait until after Christmas to tell you.”
“What, Dad?” Madison asked.
His chest rose and then fell with his breath. “I’m selling the house.”
Neither sister said a word. Was Madison as shocked as Emmy?
Everywhere Emmy looked, she saw her mother: The table downstairs in the kitchen nook where she’d had her coffee every morning; the sofa by the fireplace where she used to read; and the bathroom sink, the place she’d taught Emmy how to braid her hair.
If she didn’t have this house to come back to, would her mother feel farther away?
“It’s just me here—all alone in this big house. I don’t need it anymore,” her dad said, his voice breaking. “It’s time to let another family build memories here.”
The grief still lingered on her father’s face.
Suddenly, Emmy realized that while she loved coming home to all those memories of her mom once or twice a year, her dad had to endure all the little reminders of her mother every day.
It had been long enough. He deserved to move on.
As much as she hated to admit it, he was right.
The house and their possessions were just things.
She’d still love her mom with or without them.
And she had the memories to hang onto. Emmy nodded, but a lump had formed in her throat. She met Madison’s gaze.
Her dad took in a breath. “Please tell me you support me in this.”
“Of course,” Madison said.
“I totally understand,” Emmy added.
“Thank you, girls.” He wrapped them in a hug, then let them go and took a step back.
“It’s hard to move into the next chapter, but after being here for so long, alone, I can promise you, these are just things.
Your mom’s no longer here. If she were present in some form, I’d have found her. I definitely looked hard enough.”
Her dad was right, although it didn’t make the idea of parting with the house easy.
“So, what were you girls coming to ask me?”
“Emmy needs a new outfit, and I wondered if you’d mind if we went through Mom’s clothes to see if there’s something that Emmy can wear?” Madison asked.
“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Emmy began, but her dad stopped her.
He took off his reading glasses, set them on the side table, and peered at them for a minute. “I haven’t opened the box in years.”
“We don’t have to,” Emmy said quickly.
But her dad stood up. “I’m going to have to go through it eventually. Her clothes are just sitting in there. I’m sure she’d be delighted to think they were getting some use. Maybe you two could divvy up what you’d like to keep before we have to pack it all up.”
Then, he went into the closet and dug around in the back.
A shiver of unease slid down Emmy’s spine.
“Your mom packed this ages ago, and I never did go through it.” His voice was muffled from bending over as he tugged on a box, dragging it out of the closet.
“I still don’t know…” Emmy protested.
Madison faced her. “Why? You’re so much like her, and her clothes are classics. I’m surprised you haven’t gone through them already.”
Emmy couldn’t verbalize exactly why she felt uncomfortable at the thought of wearing her mother’s clothing.
Maybe they seemed too good for her in some way, but she doubted she could make her family understand.
This was different from trying on a dress that her mother had never worn.
These were the clothes she’d hugged Emmy in after school, the shirts with the sleeves she’d rolled up when she cooked dinner…
Her dad moved the box into the middle of the room and shimmied open the flaps.
Emmy hung back while Madison gently picked through them. She could pinpoint the day her mother had packed that box: the day she’d decided she’d be wearing more comfortable attire for the rest of her short life.
Anne had just been through chemotherapy, and she’d told them the night before that she felt as if the nausea was there to stay. Emmy had come home from high school to her mom cleaning out the closet instead of meeting her at the door.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Her mom didn’t look up. “Just organizing.”
“It doesn’t look like organizing. It looks like you’re moving.”
Her mother sniffled. “I’m just getting rid of stuff I doubt I’ll wear again.”
Emmy didn’t press her mother. At that time, she still believed that her mom, who managed to overcome any challenge with ease and grace, would prevail through this as well. Anne was superhuman in Emmy’s eyes. Surely, she could manage it. But looking back, her mother knew better.
“What about this?” Madison pulled a flowy, light olive-green pullover shirt from the box. “This is timeless.” She ran her hand down the silky sleeve that puckered at the wrist.
“I don’t remember that one,” Emmy said.
“I remember when she wore it,” their father said with a doting look.
“Before either of you were born, I took her on a date to a drive-in theater, and I told her she was too pretty in it to be closed up in a dark car. I wanted to show her off.” His eyes misted over.
“She told me, ‘I’m only out to get the attention of one man. He’s already seen it, so my work here is done. ’”
Emmy and Madison shared a moment of adoration with their father.
Emmy wasn’t sure if it was her sudden need to feel close to her mother or the nostalgia of her dad’s story of their love for one another, but she changed her mind. Emmy wanted to wear the shirt. She took it from Madison and held it out.
“Think it’ll fit me?”
Madison shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Emmy folded it over her arm and took it into the bathroom.
She closed the door and then lifted the garment to her nose hoping to smell her mother, but the scent had long disappeared.
She shrugged off her T-shirt and carefully slipped her mother’s shirt over her head.
The cool fabric slid down over her body as she wiggled into it.
Her reflection startled her. The color brought out her dark hair and green eyes. She squinted at the image in front of her. While her sister favored her mother more, she could almost see a resemblance.
“How does it fit?” Madison called from the hallway.
Emmy opened the door, and her sister gasped. “It’s perfect,” Emmy said.
“I can’t believe how well it fits.”
Their dad peeked his head into the bathroom and put his hand to his heart. “Wow. You sure do look like your mother in that.” He blinked. “I can’t believe it. It’s as if I’ve gone back in time.”
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Madison said. “If it’s Charlie, we’ll keep him busy. Go finish getting ready.” She grabbed their father’s arm and led him toward the staircase.
Emmy fluffed her hair, added a bit of her new lip gloss, grabbed the envelope, and then rushed up to the loft to switch her pajama bottoms for a pair of jeans.
When she was dressed and ready, she headed downstairs with her mother’s designs.
She would slip them into her sketchpad that she’d left in the living room, waiting for the right moment to show her dad what she’d drawn.
Charlie, Madison, and her dad were sitting on the sofa across from a to-go cup carrier full of paper coffee cups. Charlie was mid-sentence when he trailed off, his eyes landing on Emmy.
“Hey,” he said, standing up.
Madison and their dad followed suit.
“I promised my mom coffee, so I grabbed you all some as well. It’s just regular. I wasn’t sure what to get,” Charlie said. He gestured toward the cups.
“Thank you.” She tried to play it cool while feeling like a young girl again in his presence.
It was so good to see him. His hair was a little shorter. Had he gotten it cut recently? And he looked fitter. More exercise over the last year would’ve been a good idea, she thought. She hoped her face didn’t reveal how happy she was that he’d made it to Tennessee.
“Dad and I are going to make some breakfast with Aunt Charlotte. She’s already making a potato casserole, and Aunt Elsie’s rounding up the others. Y’all want to eat?” Madison asked, picking up the coffees and pushing their dad toward the hinged doors between the living room and the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” Emmy asked Charlie. “I am.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” he replied.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Madison said. “Eat.”
“Okay then.”
When Madison and her dad went into the kitchen to talk to the others, Emmy stood opposite Charlie in the quiet living room.
“What’s that?” He pointed to the envelope under her arm.
“Oh, these are my mother’s designs. We found them in some of her things.”
“May I see?” Charlie asked.
“I haven’t even seen them yet. Want to look at them together?”
“Sure.”
They sat down on the sofa. Emmy slid her finger under the envelope’s flap and pinched the pieces of paper inside.
Slowly, she slid them out, and her breath caught when she saw the first sketch.
She ran her hand down the line drawing of a slim, elegant silhouette of a woman in a classic, mid-century tea-length dress.
It was cinched at the waist, emphasizing the hourglass figure, with a full skirt that fanned out gracefully.
The soft shading and light watercolor indicated her mother’s preference for a luxurious silk or maybe taffeta.
Charlie leaned over her shoulder. “She was talented.”
“So is Emmy,” Madison said from the doorway.
Emmy laid the papers in her lap. “Oh, no, not like Mom, but I would like to see if I could draw a modern version of some of these.”
Madison had already crossed the room. She picked up Emmy’s sketchbook and flicked through it, turning around Emmy’s design that featured a bateau neckline with a delicate bow detail at the shoulder, added for feminine charm.
The bodice was tailored, with princess seams, and the pencil skirt fell below the knee, hugging the hips and then tapering slightly.
When Emmy pulled her appraising eyes from it, Charlie was staring at her curiously.
“You drew that?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes rounded. “It’s incredible.”
Was he just being nice? It didn’t seem like it. Wearing her mother’s clothes, their drawings side by side, Emmy felt an unspoken unity with her mom fall over her. They’d always shared a creative bent, but this was the first moment that she felt like her.
“I’m heading back into the kitchen. Aunt Elsie is getting out the Scrabble board.” Madison leaned in. “Run,” she whispered dramatically.
Emmy laughed.
Then Madison left Emmy and Charlie alone once more.
Emmy flipped through the rest of her mom’s sketches, pointing out things she liked to Charlie. He was a good listener. He was attentive, flipping through her drawings as he chatted about her mother’s. He asked questions and seemed interested in her answers.
While they were in the same room they’d been in last year, in the daylight, with all that had just happened, things felt very different. She couldn’t wait to see where the day took them.