Chapter 22
Hank came to the museum on a Tuesday afternoon in May.
He stood awkwardly inside the gallery while the children packed away their work, holding a roll of paper towels Sophie had asked him to collect from the storeroom.
She had agreed to let him volunteer after Bethany suggested it, and had spent the first half hour wondering whether she had made a mistake.
Hank said very little to the children, but he fetched cloths whenever they spilled something and stayed beside a boy who took a long time fastening his coat.
Sophie gave him another stack of paper towels before he could ask what else needed doing.
He put them within reach of the shortest child without moving any of her supplies.
After the bus left, he helped stack chairs. Sophie asked whether he was staying for coffee, and he said he needed to look at an apartment before the rental office closed.
“For you?” She stopped with a chair against her hip.
Hank nodded. He fitted another chair onto the stack, took it off because it was crooked, and tried again.
“Jesse knows,” he said. “I told him yesterday.”
“Have you looked at any others?” Sophie asked. She carried the last chair to the stack and put it on top.
“Three.” Hank steadied her chair on top of the stack. “First one I didn’t get out of the car. Drove all the way there and came home.”
Sophie asked which one he was seeing now. He took an advertisement from his pocket and showed her a blurred photograph of a kitchen with a washing machine beneath the counter.
“She says Jesse put me up to it,” he said. He held the paper where Sophie could read the address. “I told her he didn’t.”
“Did she believe you?” Sophie suspected the answer.
“No.” He folded the paper. “I’m still going to look.”
That evening she asked Jesse why he hadn’t told her. He said Hank had asked him to wait until he’d seen the apartment, and Sophie began to object before remembering that Kelly still hadn’t told Marianne everything about losing her job. She asked which place Hank was going to see.
Jesse told her, then said Lorraine had left two messages asking him to persuade Hank to stay. He played the first sentence of one before stopping it and putting the phone away. Sophie passed him the dish of potatoes and waited until he was ready to speak again.
“What did you say?” Sophie rested her foot against his beneath the table.
“That she’d have to ask him.” Jesse passed back the potatoes without taking any. “She wants me there when he comes home from the viewing.”
“Are you going?” Sophie asked. He shook his head and reached for the salt, then asked what time she’d promised Kelly they’d meet her on Saturday.
The portrait session was Sophie’s idea. Nina had emailed to ask whether they wanted to go ahead with the final album and have her videographer recolor Lorraine’s dress in the wedding film.
Sophie had approved the still photographs months ago, but left the video estimate unanswered.
She opened the proofs that evening and found the picture of Jesse holding her bouquet behind the hedge.
She chose the museum garden for the new photographs.
She’d watched it through her office window for years and liked the rosebush by the wall, which survived every volunteer’s attempt to prune it.
The fundraiser where they’d met had been behind the community center across town, on folding chairs and trampled grass.
Here she could have her mother, Kelly, and Haley close by, and go inside to change without passing a room full of guests.
Jesse asked what he could arrange. Sophie gave him the flowers and dinner afterward, then made the invitations herself.
Marianne asked if she could wear the same dress because she’d hardly got to enjoy it the first time; Haley offered to collect the food, and Kelly asked whether Sophie had checked the steamer still worked.
“Are you going to tell me it’s too soon?” Sophie asked. She stood with the gown laid across the bed.
“I was thinking about the buttons,” Kelly said. Then she sighed. “And yes. A little.”
Sophie closed her eyes. “I want you there,” she said. “I don’t need you to pretend you trust him.”
“I want to trust him,” Kelly said. Her voice softened. “I’ll bring the good steamer.”
Hank accepted without asking whether Lorraine was invited. Two days later he called about the sage tie, and Sophie told him to wear it. She wanted to see it beside her own dress and said so when Jesse asked why she was smiling at the phone.
Lorraine learned about the gathering from Ruth. Jesse told Sophie when the call came, sitting beside her on the sofa while he read the message asking what time she should arrive. Sophie looked at the screen and felt the old tension return before she could stop it.
“She isn’t invited. You know that.”
“I know.” Jesse put the phone down. “I’ll tell her.”
He called from the kitchen while Sophie remained on the sofa. She could hear his voice without moving closer, and she kept her eyes on the book in her lap while he said there had been no mistake with the invitations.
Lorraine spoke long enough that he sat down. Sophie heard the chair scrape, then his answer, quieter and firmer than the first.
“You can’t come to this,” he said. He paused. “No, I won’t ask her again.”
He said that Hank was coming, then repeated that Lorraine was not. Sophie held the book shut between her palms.
“I want the day with my wife,” he said. “I don’t want to spend it doing this.”
He ended the call a little later. When he came back, Sophie moved her feet to make room. He sat beside her, put her feet in his lap, and asked what time they were collecting the flowers.
On the afternoon of the photographs, Kelly fastened the gown while Marianne adjusted the veil. Haley came in with the food receipt and a bottle of water, then set both down before helping Sophie lift the skirt clear of a chair leg.
“You can breathe out,” Kelly said. She worked the last button through its loop. “I’m done.”
Sophie let out a breath and turned toward the mirror. Haley was kneeling beside the hem with a piece of lint between her fingers, and Marianne’s hand rested on Sophie’s shoulder. Sophie asked them to stay there while she looked at all four of them together.
Jesse waited in the garden wearing a dark suit and his old watch. He turned when Sophie came through the door, and the expression on his face made her stop long enough that Nina raised the camera before anyone spoke.
He came to her. His gaze moved over the sweep of the skirt, the buttons, the open back. When he touched her waist, she put her hands over his and kept them there.
“You look beautiful.” He drew her closer, but she kept a hand against his chest until he stopped.
“Let me look at you too.” Sophie straightened the flower on his lapel and smoothed the collar she’d caught beneath it. Then she took his hand and led him toward Nina.
They took the photographs in half an hour.
Hank stayed at the edge until Sophie called him in; Kelly corrected the angle of Marianne’s hat, and Haley made Jesse laugh by describing the argument they’d had with the steamer.
Sophie caught herself looking toward the gate once.
Jesse was already beside her, holding the train clear of a puddle while Nina changed a lens.
After dinner Sophie found Kelly in the kitchen with Jesse, trying to fit the leftover food into containers. Her sister held out a lid and asked him to find what it belonged to; he tried three boxes before she took it back and matched it herself.
“You’d starve if somebody didn’t leave things where you could see them,” Kelly said. She wrote on the lid, crossed out the first word, and started again.
“I did all right on my own.” Jesse wrapped the bread and put it beside the boxes. “I even bought a pan.”
Kelly looked at him without smiling. Then she asked whether he wanted the cake covered too, and he passed her the last clean container.
Sophie went in and handed Jesse the plates. She kissed Kelly’s cheek, took the pen, and labeled the last container while her sister stood beside her eating a piece of cake from her fingers.
When everyone left, Jesse brought out the final album Nina had delivered that afternoon. They sat on the sofa while Sophie turned the pages, seeing Lorraine in sage green wherever she appeared. She stopped at the family group, ran a finger along Hank’s matching tie, and let herself smile.
At the photograph behind the hedge, Sophie stopped. She could see the crushed bread between their hands, a petal caught against Jesse’s sleeve, her own mouth open in laughter.
“You ate most of that,” she said.
“I hadn’t had lunch.” Jesse put his arm along the back of the sofa. Sophie closed the album and set it on the table, then turned beneath his arm and kissed him.
He drew her closer, catching the skirt before it slid onto the floor. She moved into his lap, her hands at the back of his neck, and kept kissing him until his grip tightened at her waist.
“Help me with the buttons,” she said. She kissed the corner of his mouth. “Upstairs.”
He carried the train while they climbed.
In their room he stood behind her and unfastened the buttons, setting each one free before moving to the next.
Sophie watched him in the mirror until the dress loosened.
When she turned, he took it from her hands and kissed her bare shoulder, and she reached behind him to close the bedroom door.