Chapter 2 #2
I stiffened at Julien’s name, as I’d come to do every time someone said it aloud.
What was more, I was surprised by Father’s interest in the business.
He hadn’t mentioned a word about it in all these months, and suddenly he wanted to discuss one of our client’s commissions?
Mrs. Smith had commissioned the earrings last fall, and she’d been waiting for them ever since.
I was doing my best to finish the delicate gold filigree webbing my father had started, but gold of that nature was so soft, it was easier to snap the pieces than it was to bend them.
Though logically I knew my skills were nearly as good as my father’s, it was his confidence and his creativity, his ingenuity, that I lacked.
Perhaps it was something a person grew into, or perhaps my deficiency came from years of being excluded by a society not interested in women’s work.
Maybe I wasn’t as good at jewelry-making as I’d always been told. Maybe I didn’t care.
I looked at my father, a diminutive figure of the larger-than-life man I’d always known, and tried to find a way to respond to his request, to reassure him that everything would be all right with the commission and his business, even without his only son and heir.
That our home wasn’t about to be seized by the bank and everything we’d worked for reduced to nothing.
That eventually, I’d finish the Rosalee commission, but it wouldn’t help us with our bills because she’d already paid for them.
Words failed me.
“You didn’t answer me,” he said. “Is Rosalee still waiting for her commission?”
Thankfully, the brassy sound of the telephone drowned out my feeble reply. I thumped down the stairs to the old sewing table and picked up the receiver.
“Hello, Beaumont Jewelers. How may I help you?”
“Hello, is this Lizzie? I believe I promised you a call.”
My grip on the receiver tightened. It was the distinctive drawl of Evalyn McLean. She’d fulfilled her promise after all. “Hello, ma’am. How nice to hear from you.”
“Why don’t you come for a visit, to my main house. We call it Friendship, and it’s on Tenleytown Road, north of Georgetown. I have a little time this afternoon if you’re free.” Though presented as a suggestion, I had the distinct impression it was an order.
“I… Well, yes, ma’am. Would three o’clock suit you?”
“See you then.”
Hands shaking, I scratched her address on a notepad by the telephone.
I could hardly believe it. She wanted to see me, had called me to the house.
A flare of hope nearly blinded me as I took the stairs by twos and returned to my father’s bedroom.
I immediately noticed he’d made a dent in his soup, and I said a silent prayer of thanks.
He couldn’t afford to lose much more weight.
In fact, neither could I. I made a mental note to make myself some lunch, too.
“Who called?” he asked, resting the spoon in his bowl with a clatter.
I sidestepped his question. “I need to go out today, but the Smith earrings are nearly done. I’ll be able to deliver them next week.”
“Out?” His pale-blue eyes sparked with uncharacteristic interest. “Where to? Is it a new client?”
I paused, weighing what the truth might do to my fragile father.
I could never be certain what his reaction might be.
Since Julien’s death, he was as unstable as a ship on stormy seas.
At times, I’d catch glimpses of the loving, warmhearted man who’d raised me, but the smallest trigger could send him into a fit of rage.
He’d curse the universe and its cruelty for taking not only his wife years ago but his son, too.
Other times, he would curl into himself, not speaking for days, and I was once again left alone without him, without Julien, without anyone.
To avoid his eyes, I busied myself, tucking the blankets in around his feet. “I’m meeting with a new potential customer in Georgetown.”
“Good girl. Be sure to let them know I’ll be working as soon as I’m able.”
I knew the subtle meaning behind his words: He wanted to assure potential customers who would not purchase a woman’s work that it was, in fact, a man at the helm, and I was merely the messenger, an assistant standing in for him while he was ill.
I didn’t tell him it was his absence—ignoring the calls from Evalyn McLean months ago—that might have ruined our relationship with this potential customer.
“Yes, Father, I know,” I said wearily.
“Who is it?” he persisted.
I couldn’t tell him it was the McLeans. Their story was inexorably twined with ours in a way that would forever haunt us both, my father and me. And I wouldn’t concern him with the risks I was taking by returning there.
As I fabricated a surname for an imaginary client, I headed to the bedroom door and called over my shoulder, “Please finish your lunch, Father. I’ll be home this evening to look in on you.”
Before he could needle me further, I closed the door behind me. And the determination I’d felt earlier returned in a welcome rush.