Chapter 19
CHAPTER
Shopping after work was Mother’s idea.
It wasn’t Elsa’s favorite activity, but it did push Mr. Chapman’s reprimands to the back of her mind as she focused more on her mother than she did on any sale.
“I’m so glad you’re here to help me, dear.” Mother stood beside her on the wooden escalator. “I don’t have a thing to wear to the next club luncheon, and I value your opinion.”
Elsa smiled, and a chuckle broke free. Mother had never needed Elsa’s input for her fashion choices before.
And she must have remembered Elsa had previously suggested Macy’s department store.
She would never have chosen it for herself.
Moreover, Mother’s dressing room was already full of things she could wear to a luncheon.
So Elsa heard the sentiment for what it was: “I value you,” her mother had meant. “I value time with you.” For that, Elsa dared to put her arm around Mother’s straight shoulders. “I value you, too.”
Mother’s perfect posture softened. “Thank you.” The earnest surprise in her tone touched something in Elsa’s heart.
Had her mother doubted such a simple statement?
She didn’t like to think so. Then again, when was the last time Elsa had truly tried to connect with Mother beyond manners and etiquette and what she assumed was expected of her?
It had been another long day. After her meeting with her boss, she’d skinned five more birds and processed more specimen exchanges with cooperating museums while entertaining an undercurrent of unease for the fate of Tatiana and Danielle.
Her thoughts had run the gamut from the Petrovic mother and daughter to what Agnes had told her of Birdie, Sarah, and Linus.
Elsa had been full to the brim lately with concern for mothers and daughters she couldn’t help.
What about her relationship with her own mother?
Reaching the next floor, they stepped off the escalator in the handbags department, rounded the bend, and boarded another escalator on their journey to women’s fashions.
“Are you sure you need a new outfit?” Elsa asked.
“Why? Do you need to go so soon?”
“Not at all. In fact, we can still shop if you’d like to. But there’s an English tearoom on the seventh floor. Fancy a cuppa?” She grinned. “We could just keep going up an extra flight, and then be refreshed for the retail adventure ahead.”
Mother smiled then, a real, imperfect smile. The skin near her eyes crinkled in a way she barely ever allowed. “Let’s.”
“Good.”
On the sixth floor, they switched escalators one more time. Soft rays of sunshine fell through the atrium ceiling, tinting the white floors and walls a honeyed gold. The oak railing of this engineering marvel reflected the shine and felt as smooth as silk beneath Elsa’s gloved hand.
And then they stopped. Elsa glanced around, waiting for the movement to restart.
“Is this part of the fun here at Macy’s?” Mother whispered.
“It’s never done this before.”
“Well?” a shopper behind them called. “We have legs, don’t we?”
Elsa dropped back a step to place herself single file behind her mother, allowing other patrons to climb past them on the left.
She looked up and down, and judged they were a little more than halfway between the floors.
But these escalator stairs were steep, and there were so many yet to go. Her heart thudded with dread.
“Shall we go on?” Mother asked, eyebrows lifted. “Like the middle class?” She winked, and Elsa couldn’t help but laugh at the rare display of humor.
“I’m right behind you.”
Mother climbed, and Elsa followed, her grip on the railing growing tighter. After ten steps, she couldn’t keep up the pace.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she fell farther behind and more ladies swished by, knocking her with handbags swinging from their elbows.
This shouldn’t be so hard for her. Hadn’t she been faithfully strengthening her muscles?
Increasing her endurance? She’d been climbing the stairs at Elmhurst, but those weren’t nearly so steep.
Sweat prickled her scalp beneath her cloche, then traced a thin trail down her temple. The ache was becoming unbearable. Her lungs labored in a way they hadn’t, even in the stair tower of Elmhurst. Her glasses slipped, and she pushed them up again.
She had to get up these stairs. But her weak leg threatened not to hold her.
It’s the end of the day, she told herself.
I did too much already, that’s all. But she couldn’t believe her own lie.
It was true she’d walked a fair piece in the park before work, but she’d been sitting at the museum for most of the day. She ought to be fresh.
She felt faint.
Pausing to catch her breath, she glanced up the escalator and could no longer see her mother. Good. That meant Mother could not see her. Shame rushed to her face at the idea.
“What’s the big idea, lady? If you haven’t noticed, the escalator’s on the fritz. You ain’t gettin’ nowheres fast.”
Elsa grimaced at the shopper to prove that while she may be lame, she was not deaf.
She had to take it one step at a time. Using her good leg first, then pulling up the weak one to the same step. Over and over again. Right, together. Right, together. Like a toddler.
Only, she was pretty sure toddlers didn’t sweat this much. The palms of her gloves were damp. Hair stuck to the back of her neck.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe.
When darkness crowded the edges of her vision, she leaned on the handrail and bent her head.
“Excuse me, pardon me, make way.” From above, Mother’s voice filtered down to Elsa. She was getting closer. “Out of my way, please.”
“Listen, lady, you can’t go down the up escalator.”
“Watch me.”
Elsa looked up just as Mother elbowed her way past one protesting shopper and shimmied around another, bumping a stranger aside with her hips.
Was she dreaming?
“Hello, darling.” Mother shared the step with Elsa and slipped her arm around her waist. They were blocking everyone behind them. “Take your time. You tell me when you’re ready, and we’ll move.”
The shoppers directly behind them kept quiet, but those farther back called up to complain about the holdup.
Mother ignored them. “I counted eleven more steps to the top, Elsa. You tell me what you want to do. Shall we go up for that spot of tea? Or shall we turn around and go back down? Never mind the crowd, we’ll get past them if that’s the route you want to take.”
“As I live and breathe.” One of the women who’d been griping called up. “Beryl? Beryl Reisner, is that you holding up all these people?”
Mother’s grip on Elsa firmed. She looked over her shoulder. “I’m holding up my daughter, and that’s all that matters to me. Oh, that’s you, Mrs. Marshall. I beg your pardon. I didn’t recognize you without your manners.”
“Mother!” Elsa gasped.
Mother looked at her, with a set to her jaw and a fierce devotion in her eyes that Elsa didn’t recall ever seeing before. “The lot behind us can jump ship for all I care. And how. Isn’t that what you young folks say?”
Elsa laughed despite the scene she was causing, or perhaps because of it. Because for the first time in memory, Mother was causing her own. She was not embarrassed by Elsa. She was supporting her and even defending her.
“Let’s go up,” Elsa said.
Mother smiled. “Ready? Together now.”
Yes, they were.
———
Once they were seated at a table in the tearoom, Elsa pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her face and neck. Normally, she’d reserve such a task for the restroom but hadn’t the energy to make the extra trip.
“Thank you for that, back there.” She snapped her handkerchief away. “I’ve never seen you that way before. I rather enjoyed it.”
Chuckling, Mother leaned forward. “So did I.”
Elsa could barely contain her surprise long enough to place their order with the waiter. “Have you changed, Mother?” she asked once they were alone again. “Or have we not spent enough time together for me to notice this side of you?”
Her small sigh fluttered the lilies in the vase between them. “A bit of both, I think. Now, please, tell me what’s going on. Your father told me you were feeling better. He said you’d been training to strengthen your body. Isn’t that what you shared with him last weekend?”
“I did.”
“And what have you not told us?”
“Wouldn’t you rather talk about Lauren’s wedding?” She pushed up a smile, but it wilted.
“I would rather hear about you.” One eyebrow arched in a stern but caring command.
The waiter returned with the tea trays, giving Elsa time to think as she watched the steaming brew being poured into their cups. It didn’t take long for her to decide on the truth.
“I saw Dr. Stanhope last week. In his office, that is. I made an appointment with him.”
Mother blanched. “That man. There’s a reason we discontinued his services partway through your boarding school years.”
Elsa’s cup rattled in its saucer. “Why do you say that?”
“Whenever I questioned his choices and predictions, he made me feel as though I were a fool. He was the doctor, he told me. I ought to let him do the thinking. My job, I suppose, was to ensure his payments were on time.”
“What—what did you question, specifically?” Elsa looped her finger through the teacup handle. Heat from the cup burned her knuckle.
“Staying away from you when I knew you were sick at boarding school. He told me I would only teach you that pretending illness was the right way to get my attention.”
“Did you think I was pretending?”
Mother shook her head, then hid a trembling chin behind her teacup as she sipped. “I didn’t know what to think. The doctor told me not to try. I was too emotional. He was the one being paid to think on our behalf.”