Chapter 4
Audrey
Daniel's reply arrived the next morning.
Yes. Can you come in Thursday? Bring the portfolio, not a cake. Last time you brought a cake, we lost forty minutes.
I read it twice before answering.
I had forgotten people could remember me for something other than being Ethan Bennett's wife.
On Thursday, Claire drove me to the studio and made me promise to call when I was finished. I had enough energy for the interview. I wasn't yet willing to trust myself with the drive home after it.
Price Restoration occupied the second floor above a shop selling lamps nobody could afford. Inside, somebody had burned the coffee, and lengths of molding leaned against a wall beneath a handwritten notice that said SAMPLES ARE NOT FIREWOOD.
Daniel came out carrying a rolled drawing under one arm.
“You look tired,” he said.
“How wonderfully direct. Have you considered hospitality?”
“Only as a threat.” He took my coat. “Do you need a different chair?”
“This one is fine.”
“Good. Tell me if it stops being fine.”
He didn't ask how I was in a voice that required me to comfort him. I could have kissed him for it, except his wedding photograph stood on the desk and his wife had a formidable serve at tennis.
Instead, I opened my portfolio.
We talked about the estate for seven minutes. The materials, the rooms I had restored, the work I'd documented before the fire. Then I asked to discuss the theatre.
Daniel turned the drawings toward me.
“The Ashby has been patched for decades. Ruth wants the original auditorium preserved, better access, and a building that can support community use all week. The budget would prefer a miracle.”
“That sounds traditional.”
He smiled.
A woman appeared on the laptop screen. Short gray hair, red glasses, no visible patience for elaborate introductions.
“Ruth Mercer,” she said. “Tell me why you want my theatre.”
“I'd prefer to restore it. Possession sounds expensive.”
“That answer can stay. The rest depends.”
I explained what I saw in the preliminary drawings. The original entrance had become awkward through accumulated alterations. There might be a way to improve movement through the foyer without treating access as an addition people should be grateful for.
Ruth listened, then interrupted when I mentioned a new vestibule.
“How many rehearsal hours does building that cost me?”
I glanced at Daniel. He didn't rescue me.
“I'd need to phase the work around your schedule.”
“You'd need to know the schedule before falling in love with the vestibule.”
Heat touched my face.
“You're right.”
I drew a line through the sketch and asked about the busiest evenings.
Forty minutes later, Ruth said, “I like the second idea better.”
“So do I.”
“Good. I worry about architects who can't recover from their first one.”
When the call ended, Daniel outlined a contract. Part-time at first, increasing when I was ready. Proper pay. Defined responsibilities. A client who might argue but would not call the work a favor.
“I'll need to refresh a few systems,” I said.
“We'll arrange that.”
“And I have follow-up appointments.”
“Put them in the calendar.”
I ran a finger down the page. My name appeared beside the word architect.
Audrey Ellis.
Not Mrs. Bennett. Not volunteer. Not Ethan's wife, who had such a good eye.
“I'd like to use Ellis professionally.”
“Then that's what we'll put.”
I signed after taking the contract home and reading it when I wasn't exhausted. Four years earlier, I might have considered that excessive. Now I found comfort in knowing exactly what I had agreed to.
Before returning the signed contract, I checked the public register for my professional status and the dates of my continuing education.
Everything was current. I had kept those obligations even while letting my independent work shrink, completing courses late at night at the kitchen counter after family events.
I had mistaken that small persistence for failure because it hadn't looked like a career.
Now it was the bridge back to one.
Daniel sent a login for the studio system and an invitation to a training session. I spent an hour relearning the project software, made two irritating mistakes, and corrected both without anyone discovering a scandal.
Claire found me at the kitchen table smiling at a drawing.
“What?” she asked.
“I know how to do this.”
“You always did.”
“Not everything. Enough.”
She set a sandwich beside me and went back to her own work.
I liked that she didn't turn the moment into a speech. There were still forms to complete, appointments to attend, and a body that became tired before my ambition did. Knowing enough was somewhere to begin.
The following afternoon, I met the investigator handling my account of the estate fire.
Claire came with me but waited outside.
I supplied my email from ten days before the gala.
The temporary electrical installation in the service wing was not to be energized until the outstanding work had been completed and checked.
My role concerned conservation and restoration coordination, not electrical certification.
That distinction appeared in the appointment documents too.
Five days before the event, I had received confirmation that the service wing would remain isolated and the separate guest areas could be used.
“Who sent the confirmation?” the investigator asked.
“Facilities, through Martin Cole's office. The attachment contains the assessment for the guest areas.”
“Did you have reason to believe the arrangement had changed?”
“No.”
Saying it didn't make me feel better.
I had walked past the closed door that night. I had seen the sign. I had trusted a written answer to the right question.
The investigator asked me to describe the upstairs suite, my attempt to leave, and what I had done when smoke blocked the corridor. I answered without trying to make myself sound braver or more competent than I had felt.
Then he asked how I had come to be upstairs.
“Vivian spilled wine on my dress. She suggested the suite and sent someone with another dress.”
“Did she specify the room to the attendant?”
“Yes. The attendant said Ms. Blake had told her.”
He made a note.
I didn't ask what he thought of Vivian. I wanted a record, not a theory I could lie awake arranging into certainty.
By the time I left, I was trembling with fatigue.
Claire had a bottle of water waiting in the car.
“Home?” she asked.
“Can we look at one apartment first?”
She studied me. “One.”
The South End building had worn steps, good handrails, and a small entryway smelling faintly of somebody's lunch. The owner showed us a second-floor apartment with scratched pine boards and a kitchen window facing the street.
There were two ways out. I checked both.
I asked about the alarms, recent inspections, and the escape route at the rear. The owner answered without making me feel difficult.
The bathroom was small. The cupboard beside the sink stuck. A decorative fireplace had been painted a terrible white, but beneath it I could see the shape of something worth saving.
“It's furnished for a six-month term,” the owner said. “Available at the beginning of February.”
I looked at the desk near the window.
A place to work that didn't become a surface for someone else's mail.
“I'd like to apply.”
Claire waited until we were outside to ask about money.
“I have savings,” I said. “In my account. Enough for the deposit and rent while the work starts.”
“And if you need help?”
“I'll ask.”
She nodded, though it plainly took effort.
That evening, Ethan sent a list of apartments. There were photographs of marble bathrooms and a place with a private elevator. Beneath the list came a specialist's name and a link to a recovery program.
I stared at it until the screen dimmed.
Then I typed:
I've found an apartment. Please don't arrange purchases, appointments, or visits without asking me. Recommendations are still decisions I have to manage when I haven't requested them.
His reply came three minutes later.
Understood.
I waited for another message.
None arrived.
Relief and disappointment occupied the same small space in my chest. I wanted him to hear me. I also wanted to be worth more than one word.
That was unfair, and I knew it.
I put the phone down and returned to the theatre drawings.
An hour later, I picked it up to photograph the ugly fireplace. Ethan would have recognized my excitement about the molding beneath the paint. Once, he had listened to me describe a doorway for so long that the restaurant staff turned up the lights around us.
I opened our conversation.
The last photograph I had sent was the anniversary table. Two settings. Candles. A message beneath it: Still coming?
I closed the conversation without sending anything.
The investigator called the next morning to clarify one point.
“Ms. Bennett, are you certain Ms. Blake knew which suite you were using?”
I looked at the contract on Claire's kitchen table, my own name neat at the bottom.
“Yes,” I said. “She knew exactly where I was.”