Epilogue
Lena
On our daughter’s first birthday, I set three silver place cards on our dining table.
Mine carried the shallow scratch it had acquired when Helena moved it to the far end of her table. I had never polished the mark away. Adrian’s stood beside it, his name facing the chair he used every morning.
The smallest card went between ours.
CLARA ASHFORD was engraved across the front. After Clara was born, I had taken the miniature card back to Mr. Bell and asked him to add her name without removing the words I had ordered before anyone knew she existed. I turned it over now and ran my thumb across the first engraving.
BABY ASHFORD.
“She’s going to put that in her mouth,” Adrian said from behind me.
“Only if her father lets her reach the table.”
He shifted Clara higher on his hip. She stretched both hands toward the silver, delighted by the possibility of something forbidden.
“Her father is outnumbered,” he said.
“Her father has been outnumbered since the delivery room.”
“I was promised a recount.”
Clara laughed at his wounded tone. He kissed the soft hair above her ear, then leaned across the cards to kiss me too.
The oak table had arrived before most of the furniture in our new house.
We had chosen the house together, then gone back for the table I had shown him the morning after he stayed at the cottage.
It already carried a pale ring from a bottle warmer, a dent from my camera case, and a permanent streak of blue beneath Clara’s high chair.
At two, the bell rang.
Adrian opened the door with Clara still on his hip. Helena stood alone on the porch holding a wrapped picture book.
“Happy birthday, Clara.” She looked at me across the entry. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Come in,” I said.
She entered our home as a guest and handed Adrian the book. When Clara reached for her pearl necklace, Helena laughed, but her hands stayed at her sides.
“She remembers you,” I said.
Only then did Helena take her. She held Clara carefully, with none of the old language about heirs or Ashford blood. The restraint was not effortless; once, I watched a claim rise to her lips and disappear. But it disappeared.
“Cake in ten minutes,” Adrian told her. “If she eats your necklace before then, we are not replacing it.”
Helena looked down at Clara’s determined fist. “I see your negotiating style has deteriorated.”
“My opponent licks the evidence.”
To my surprise, Helena smiled.
Mara arrived with a wooden push toy and no wrapping paper because Clara preferred tearing receipts.
Friends from town followed, then clients whose children I had photographed and the gallery director who had given my work its first wall.
Soon the house rang with overlapping voices and the uneven clatter of small feet.
When it was time for the candle, Adrian turned off the lights and carried Clara to my side.
He sang half a beat behind everyone else, confidently and badly.
Clara reached for the flame. Adrian caught her wrist, kissed her sticky fingers, and leaned closer so the three of us could blow it out together.
“Make a wish,” he whispered to her.
Clara buried both hands in the cake.
“She wished for frosting,” I said.
“She knows what she wants.”
I raised an eyebrow.
He kissed my cheek. “She gets that from her mother.”
Adrian moved through the mess with a dish towel over one shoulder, rescuing drinks from toddlers and losing every argument with the paper crown Clara kept throwing on the floor. When Helena started to carry Clara toward the quieter sitting room, he touched his mother’s elbow.
“Keep her in here, Mom. She likes the noise.”
Helena glanced at me, then brought her back to the table without protest.
At three, she placed Clara in my arms and reached for her coat.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“Thank you for letting me.” She kissed Adrian’s cheek, then mine, a brief touch that asked for nothing. “Happy birthday, Clara.”
After she left, Adrian closed the door and looked at the pink handprint on his shirt.
“Your mother behaved,” I said.
“Our daughter did not.”
“Our daughter is one.”
“Exactly. Old enough to know better.”
I laughed and kissed frosting from the corner of his mouth.
By the time Clara had destroyed the center of her cake, Mara was collecting plates and our guests were drifting toward the windows. I reached automatically for the camera on the sideboard.
“One of the three of you,” Mara said.
“I’ll take it.”
The answer came before I realized I was already checking the light and placing myself behind the lens.
Adrian lifted Clara from her high chair. Her crooked crown slid over one eye. He settled into the chair beside mine and looked at the empty place as if he knew I would find my way there.
I set the timer.
“Ten seconds,” I warned.
“Plenty of time,” he said. “We dated for six years.”
“We were married for six years.”
“Some of it was dating. Apparently.”
The red light began to blink. I almost stayed where I was to correct him.
Then Clara squealed and reached for me. Adrian grinned over her paper crown, waiting with our daughter beside the place card that still bore her first promise.
I crossed the room and sat with them. Adrian’s arm came around my waist as Clara planted one sticky hand on each of us.
The shutter opened with all three of us laughing in the picture.
At our table, no one’s place was temporary.