25. Maximillian #3
By the time we are together again, the water someone brought her is half gone. She has taken out her phone and found Giselle’s message. She reads it once before turning the screen toward the officer.
You really think competing will fix anything? Everyone will be watching you fail.
I remember the three of us at lunch when it arrived, my mother’s face as Elle read it aloud. The table was covered with plates and the remains of cake. We thought the worst her sister could do was spoil the happiness of seeing her name on the entry list.
The officer records the message and arranges how to contact us for the fuller statements they will need. Elle gives her own number and asks what else she should keep. She doesn’t apologize for making work or ask whether this can be handled quietly for the family’s sake.
When we step outside, Felicity is approaching along the path. She stops when she sees Elle’s face.
“Deus is staying with him,” she says. “He’s settled. I wanted to see what you needed.”
Elle goes straight into her arms. My mother holds her, one hand at the back of her head, and waits until Elle draws away enough to speak.
“It was Giselle. She’s admitted it.” Elle swallows. “Last year’s fall, too. She frightened him deliberately.”
Felicity looks at me over her shoulder. For a moment her face is almost as pale as Elle’s, but her hand stays steady.
“Oh, darling.”
“I can’t tell it again yet.”
“You don’t have to.”
Elle stays with her for another breath, then steps back. I give her the glass she left inside. She drinks, holding it in both hands, while Felicity sits on the bench and makes room beside her.
“I think lunch will have to be another day,” Elle says. “I’m sorry. I did want to go.”
“So did I. We’ll go another day. Shall I call them?”
Elle looks toward me. I had said I would do it, before the official showed us the rein, when we still thought all that had gone wrong was something breaking.
“Please,” she tells Felicity. “I’d like Max to stay a minute.”
My mother takes out her phone and moves a few steps away. I sit beside Elle, close enough for her knee to rest against mine. She has a loose strand of hair caught against her mouth. Before I can reach for it, she brushes it away impatiently.
“I’m furious,” she says. “And I keep wondering who will go with her. Whether she’s frightened. I don’t want to be thinking about that.”
“You don’t have to do anything about it.”
She watches my mother speaking into the phone. “I know. It’s just there.”
There is nothing I can say that will make it stop being there. Elle has loved her sister much longer than she has known me. She rests the glass on the bench and takes my hand, turning it until our palms meet.
“I want to see Sovrano,” she says. “Then I want to go home.”
“We’ll find Deus. He can help us get everything ready.”
She nods, her thumb moving over the edge of my wedding ring.
Hers is still put away among my things at the estate.
For once I don’t think about when she might want it back.
I think about getting her out of this jacket when she wants help, about something to eat in Rosa’s kitchen, about waking when she reaches for me in the night.
The office door opens before we stand. Giselle comes out with the male officer, followed by his colleague and the security officer. The woman pauses to exchange a few words with the official waiting beside the equipment while the others continue toward the vehicles.
Giselle sees us. She slows, and I feel Elle’s fingers tighten around mine.
A pair of staff members stops talking beside the noticeboard. Farther along the path, a rider lowers the bottle she has been drinking from. Giselle notices them, too. Her chin lifts in the familiar way, but she cannot seem to make her face settle into the expression she wants.
“Georgina.”
Elle stands. I get up beside her, keeping hold of her hand.
For a moment I think Giselle will apologize. I want her to, though I don’t know what apology could survive the sight of my wife standing here in the clothes she wore to ride, still carrying the dust of what her sister did to her.
“Will you call Mother?” Giselle asks.
Elle’s lips part. I see the request reach her, see how familiar it is to be asked to make something easier for the person who has hurt her.
“You can call her yourself.”
Her voice is steady. Giselle looks toward me, but I stay beside Elle, and the officer asks her to keep walking.
We watch until they reach the vehicle. Only then does Elle turn away. She draws a breath that shakes all the way through her and presses her face briefly against my shoulder.
“I still want my sister,” she whispers. “How stupid is that?”
“It isn’t stupid.”
I kiss her hair. She holds on for a moment, then lifts her head and looks toward the stables. Felicity is waiting for us with her phone put away. The three of us can leave as soon as Elle is ready.
But I feel her look back once before we go, and it hurts more than anything Giselle has said.
I wish the woman she is looking for had ever existed.