Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Sophie saw the photograph above Lorraine’s mantel before she took off her coat.
It was large enough to dominate the room, set in a wide cream frame that matched the lamps, and it showed Lorraine in white with her hand resting on Jesse’s chest. Sophie had been standing three feet away when Nina took it.
The crop removed even the edge of her bouquet.
Jesse stopped beside her. His hand rested on the small of her back, and she felt it go still through her coat.
“You had it enlarged,” he said. He looked at Lorraine, who was arranging glasses on a tray.
“I wanted one real memory,” Lorraine said. She glanced toward Sophie. “Before anyone decides to improve it.”
Ruth sat on the sofa with a glass of wine.
Jesse’s cousin Bethany stood beside the window, helping her toddler stack wooden blocks on the sill, while Hank remained in his chair with the television remote in his lap.
Lorraine had called the gathering a simple family supper.
There were place cards on the dining table.
Two days earlier Bethany had sent Sophie a picture of Lorraine standing beside a framed print at the shop, with a tactful warning that there might be more wedding discussion on Sunday. Even so, the size of the portrait exceeded her expectations.
Sophie had thanked her and called Nina. Now a flat parcel rested under her arm, wrapped in pale green paper, and Jesse noticed it as Lorraine came forward to take their coats.
Jesse reached toward the parcel. “What’s that?” Sophie shifted it into her other hand.
“A thank-you gift.” She smiled at Lorraine. “For everything.”
Lorraine stopped reaching for the coats when she saw the parcel. She set the tray on the coffee table and held out both hands for it.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said. She pulled up the folded edge of the paper and tore it across the front of the parcel.
Sophie had chosen a frame almost identical to Lorraine’s, though smaller. The photograph inside came from the same sequence, a wider shot with Hank fully visible beside his wife. Lorraine’s dress was sage green, her shawl matched, and her husband’s tie made the group look carefully coordinated.
Ruth leaned forward. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said. “Hank, you look handsome.”
Hank came over to look. He pointed to the edge of his jacket, where Lorraine had straightened the pocket square before the photographs, and told Sophie he hadn’t seen this one.
“I thought you’d want one with your husband in it,” Sophie said. She kept her voice pleasant, feeling Jesse’s attention sharpen beside her. “And Nina matched the dress you picked.”
A corner of wrapping paper clung to Lorraine’s sleeve. She shook it off.
“We already discussed this.” Lorraine looked toward Jesse. “I asked for the originals.”
“You have an original up there,” Sophie said. “This is a gift.”
“A gift,” Lorraine repeated. She gave a small laugh and turned the frame facedown on the coffee table. “How thoughtful.”
Bethany’s toddler knocked his blocks onto the floor. Sophie held out a hand for the frame while Bethany gathered them, intending to put it beside the flowers.
Lorraine lifted the frame past Sophie’s outstretched hand and held it toward Jesse. “Do you think this is funny?” she asked him. “After what happened at the wedding?”
Jesse looked at Sophie. “You could have told me,” he said quietly.
“It’s a family photograph. Your father is in it.” Sophie refused to turn toward him.
“You know exactly what you’re doing,” Lorraine said. She looked around the room. “I paid a great deal for that dress. I’d like to remember it properly.”
“I thought you already had it,” Hank said. He spoke so quietly that Sophie nearly missed him.
“What?” Lorraine turned to Hank.
Hank repeated himself more loudly. “You said it was something you had. When we got in the car.”
“I said I was lucky I had it,” Lorraine said. Her smile returned, stretched thin at the corners. “After the cleaner. We’ve been over this.”
“Which cleaner?” Bethany asked. She rubbed a sticky block against her jeans. “I should know who to avoid.”
Lorraine gave the name of the place near the supermarket. Then she said it might have been the other branch, that Hank had collected it, that she had been far too busy with the wedding to remember every errand. Hank opened his mouth, then closed it when Lorraine looked at him.
Sophie watched him pick up the remote. “Did you collect it?” she asked.
“I don’t remember,” Hank said. He put the remote down again.
“There,” Lorraine said. “We had a difficult week too. You weren’t the only person trying to make everything perfect.”
“The green looks lovely,” Sophie said. “Even Ruth said so.”
“Don’t bring me into it,” Ruth said. She took a sip of wine and glanced up at the mantel.
Lorraine placed the smaller picture facedown again. “Can we have dinner now?” she asked Jesse. “Or am I expected to keep defending a dress?”
Jesse reached for the smaller frame. “Let’s put this away,” he said. “We’re supposed to be having dinner.”
He took it from the coffee table and set it beneath a lamp on the side table. Lorraine went into the dining room, leaving the portrait above the mantel where it was.
They stayed for thirty-five minutes. Lorraine spoke to everyone except Sophie, and Jesse left most of his dinner on his plate. When Ruth asked where Sophie had bought the frame, Sophie gave her the shop’s address, loudly enough for Lorraine to hear.
In the car Jesse sat with both hands on the wheel while Sophie fastened her seat belt.
“You planned that,” he said.
“Yes.”
He turned toward her. “You brought something to make her lose it in front of everybody.”
“She hung a wedding portrait of herself and my husband over the fireplace,” Sophie said. She pulled the seat belt away from her neck. “I brought her one with her own husband.”
“You knew she’d hate it. You’ve been waiting all week to do that.”
“Since Thursday,” Sophie said. She could still see Lorraine turning the frame facedown, unable to stop Ruth from admiring it first.
Jesse gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “You don’t have to like it,” Sophie said. “I like it.” She watched his face until he turned away.
Jesse started the car. They drove home without speaking, passing lit kitchens and wet lawns and people living through an ordinary Sunday evening. Sophie watched a woman carrying a bag of groceries up a path and envied her with a force that felt absurd.
Her phone vibrated before they reached home. Bethany had sent a message saying she liked the green photograph and was sorry dinner had been awkward. Sophie typed a reply asking whether Bethany believed the cleaner story, then deleted it.
Sophie sent a heart, then added a question about Bethany’s toddler. She watched the typing dots appear and disappear until the reply came, and put the phone away before Jesse asked who she was talking to.