Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
“ A re you going to bring a date to the wedding?” Muriel asked Cora as they lay awake in the bedroom of their mother’s cottage by the sea or Le g?te en bord de Mer, its namesake .
“No, I don’t think so,” Cora said back, wishing she could explain everything that had happened in the past seventy-two hours.
She tried apologizing to Madame Dubois, but it didn’t change her position. She kicked Cora out of the show and told her not to return. Devastated, Cora went back to her apartment and packed her bags. She pulled an all-nighter and drove to Blueberry Bay, only stopping once to get gas. She needed to get as far away from Julian Abbott as she could.
Her grandmother would have told her to watch their actions, not their words, in this situation. Every time Julian came into her life, he was like a wrecking ball, tearing down everything in sight, including her career. Worst of all, she still hadn’t talked to Brandon about her job at the restaurant.
“I can’t believe what a jerk Madame Dubois had been,” Muriel said.
Cora shook her head as the back of her eyes burned. Tears threatened to rise to the surface. She stared at the slanted ceiling of the century-old cape. She didn’t want to tell her sister why she’d run away from everything.
Julian.
She’d told her mom, sister, and grandfather that Madame Dubois hadn’t given her credit for her work, which was true. She’d told them Madame Dubois hadn’t introduced her to the designer, which was also true. And she’d told them it had looked like Madame purposely kept the designer away from Cora.
But that wasn’t the reason she had left the city.
He’d told her he loved her.
And she couldn’t have another mad love situation like she’d had with him last summer. It had been some mad love every time Julian had come around. But it was a dangerous kind of love, like a funnel cloud weaving up and down above the ground, ready to strike her heart at any moment. Because mad love didn’t last. Mad love ended very, very badly.
And now he’d told her he loved her.
“Pretty soon, I’m going to be Mrs. Oliver, Abbott,” Muriel said, playing with the gorgeous and ginormous engagement ring on her finger.
“I wonder how your students will handle the name change,” Cora said, thinking about the order of things if it were Elizabethan times. Didn’t the firstborn usually get married first? “You know, back in the day, you would have to wait to get married until after I got married.”
Muriel looked at her. “Are you upset I’m getting married before you?”
Cora shook her head, but she wasn’t thrilled. “It’s just weird. Like, I’ve always been the one who got to do things first. It’s just how it’s gone. And now, I’m going to be on the sidelines.” She leaned back into her pillow. “And I know I’m being stupid, so don’t even start in on me. I’m just feeling sorry for myself because you have this amazing guy who wants to spend the rest of his life with you.”
This made Muriel smile from cheek to cheek. “He really is special. I mean, I thought Zack was the one. I really thought he was. But once I allowed myself to put myself first, I could see what I wanted and who came naturally.”
Cora wished that would work for her. Not that she was in a rush to be in a relationship. She wanted to figure herself out first, but it seemed to be taking a lot longer than she had anticipated, and she didn’t want to wait forever to share her life with someone. She wanted someone who would listen to her highs as well as her lows, someone who let her complain and not try to fix it, and someone who just wanted to be with her.
She pulled off the covers and felt a chill in the air. Wrapping her bathrobe around her, she walked to the window and opened the shades. Even in the middle of fall, the view of Maine’s coastline from her mother’s cottage was like something from a postcard. Sea smoke rose from the water’s surface as the sun rose over the horizon. Frost covered the grass and the changed autumn leaves. Seagulls swooped in the sky, calling out to one another.
How could she even return to Madame Dubois and beg for her internship? All those complaints from her father were becoming a reality. What kind of job could she get with a degree in art focused in textiles?
She walked downstairs as Muriel grabbed a shower before work and prepared to face her mother and grandfather.
“Good morning,” Meredith said from the kitchen when Cora’s feet hit the bottom step.
“Morning,” Cora said back, looking for her grandfather. “Grandpa up yet?”
“He’s long gone,” Meredith said. “He’s at breakfast with the boys.”
“Boys?” Cora asked, interested.
“Oliver and his grandfather, Quinn and Kyle, Emil and Colby,” Meredith rattled off the names.
“That’s a lot of boys. They could have a whole scout troop.”
“Don’t give them any ideas.” Meredith stirred something in a bowl.
“What are you making?” Cora asked, walking over to her mother and peeking inside.
“I thought some blueberry muffins would be nice this morning,” Meredith said, revealing the batter.
“Mmm,” Cora agreed, smelling the sweet fragrance. “That sounds good.”
Meredith played with the oven as Cora poured herself a cup of coffee, taking in the scenery outside as she sipped. She expected Meredith to come in hot with questions about why she’d up and left her life in Boston. Her mother usually wanted to know all the details, but Meredith seemed more interested in the blueberry muffins than why her daughter suddenly appeared at her door.
Cora walked around downstairs as Meredith spooned the batter into the muffin pan. She walked through the living room and studied the photographs and paintings. Meredith had lots of photographs of them all as children. The three of them in the pool back at the house in Andover. On vacation at her aunt Remy’s home on the Cape. Photographs of them with their grandparents. Christmas morning, sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting to come down to see if Santa Claus had arrived. So many wonderful memories they’d had as kids. But was it? Was it like everyone’s reels or their feed on social media? Show all the sweet to cover up the sour? Her parents had obviously faked the happiness.
She walked through the dining room into the room off the kitchen that had the piano. Meredith called it the piano room, but Cora thought it deserved a more sophisticated name, like the drawing room or the lounge. It was her favorite room in the house. The space was filled with windows and natural light. Two leather recliner chairs sat on one end, and the piano and woodstove were on the other. Shelves lined the one wall that wasn’t covered in windows.
She opened the coat closet and pulled out her mother’s winter coat. She could tell the Maine fall would be much chillier than Boston’s. Zipping it up, she pulled the hood up and opened the door to outside. She wanted to take a walk by the beach and call Brandon.
Cora had been to Blueberry Bay in the winter only once at Christmas time but never in the fall. Wow, what had she missed? The patchwork of color made her stop dead in her tracks as she stepped off the porch and onto the walkway. An orange haze filtered through the clouds as the sun rose above the waters beyond her mother’s house. It really was a sight to behold, standing on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean as the waves crashed onto its granite shores. She could feel the mist of the ocean spray hit her face.
She followed the walking path to the private cove her mother called Queens’ Beach through small pines and yellowed beach rose bushes. Birds swooped through the rocks, soaring just above the water’s surface as Cora sat down on a large piece of driftwood set around a fire pit they had used as seating. Last summer, she and Julian sat around that fire pit almost every night after they met, talking about life and their dreams. That Julian had been magnifying. She hung on to every word he said and spent every minute she could with him.
But he'd ghost her when they returned to their real lives in Boston. Then she went up for Labor Day weekend, and they returned to sitting around a fire, watching the stars and kissing. Then the weekend would end, they’d head back to Boston, and he’d vanish.
She picked up a rock, stood up from her seat, and tossed it into the water, skipping it along its surface. The flat rock jumped a few times, sinking into the water like her career. Why can’t she have it all? Why can’t she have a slice of credit for creating a design for Madame Dubois? Why can’t she have a normal relationship with a guy? Why couldn’t she be the one who was getting married and having a happily ever after? She was about to hit thirty in less than a year and had nothing to show.
When she returned to her mother’s cottage, her eye caught a title from the bookshelf in the piano room. Maybe it was because Cora had trained her eye to pick up anything to do with her craft. She noticed the title of a book, The History of Textiles, but it stuck out from the rest. As she pulled the book off the shelf, others around it loosened from their space and revealed their titles, too. Textile Design, Modern Textiles, Painted and Printed Textiles . One after another, book after book, old titles and newer, leaned over as she pulled more and more books from the shelf.
“Mom?” she said as she pulled out even more books, stacking them together on the floor. “Do you mind if I read these?”
Meredith looked up from her baking. “Goodness, no. Take whatever you want. Those were Jacob’s books.”
The mysterious grandfather she had never met.
“Off to work!” Muriel said, bouncing into the kitchen.
“What?” Meredith wiped her hands on a dish towel. “So early? The muffins aren’t ready.”
“Good,” Muriel said to Meredith, then kissed her on the cheek. “I’m trying not to eat baked goods until after the wedding.”
“It’s baking season for the Queen Bees,” Meredith said. “I can’t stop now.”
“I know.” Muriel smiled at this. Just like everything else in Muriel’s life, she seemed just fine with things. She waved as she walked to the door. Oliver, her sister’s fiancé’s truck, pulled up to the house. “Love you, guys.”
“You guys drive to work together?” Cora wanted to puke at the cheesiness of it all.
“We work in the same building,” Muriel said. “Why wouldn’t we?”
And just like that, Cora’s little sister was off to teach the youth of Blueberry Bay.
“I still can’t believe she’s a teacher,” Cora said, watching Muriel trip on the sidewalk as she walked to the truck. The clumsy and sometimes immature girl steadied herself and gracefully got into the truck with her handsome fiancé.
“You can’t believe she’s a teacher, but I can’t believe my baby’s getting married.” Meredith shook her head in her own little conversation.
Cora sat on the floor and opened the first book she’d pulled from the shelves. “Was Jacob into textiles?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith said from the kitchen. “But he was into everything.”
Cora looked around the house. Most of Jacob’s pieces were oil and canvas. He had sculpted later in life, but only a few dramatic pieces were in public spaces, like the garden in downtown Blueberry Bay, the local university, and a harbor port in the southern part of the state.
She flipped through the pages until the smell of sweet blueberries lured her into the kitchen. She brought the book with her and a few others. She sat down at the dining room table, listening to her mother’s humming as Cora read the captions of the photographs. There were dozens of designs she had never seen and pages of information on fibers and materials she hadn’t considered using before.
Her degree in art hadn’t even touched upon some of the things she had seen in the first few pages. By the time the blueberry muffins had been taken out of the oven, along with the blueberry bread and cakes, Cora was so wrapped up in the book she hadn’t even noticed her mother had been talking to her.
“Cora, did you not hear a word I just said?” Meredith asked.
Cora set the book down. “No, I’m sorry.”
Meredith sat at the table with a plate of muffins and more coffee. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She put a muffin on a plate, slid it in front of Cora, and then pushed a butter jar to her.
“It’s freshly churned from the farm down the road,” Meredith said, raising her eyebrows while waiting for Cora to try it.
Cora twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “I’m really not that hungry.”
Meredith frowned as she examined Cora. “Tell me what happened at the show.”
“I told you,” Cora said. “They didn’t give me any credit for my work.”
But by the way, Meredith kept eyeing her, her mother wasn’t buying it.
“I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough to be recognized. And looking through this, I feel like I don’t know what I’m even doing.” Cora let out a deep sigh. “I’m just lost.”
She thought about confessing everything to her mom. Meredith would give her good advice. But wasn’t that just selfish to do at this point? Her mom was the happiest she had ever been. Her life had been practically torn down to the ground, and now she lived life to its fullest. Today, she was baking for the Queen Bees. Tomorrow, she might be hiking with Muriel. The next, dinner with the art society. She played piano regularly for fun, walked the beach at night, and was head over heels in love with Quinn, who’d become the missing piece in her mother’s life. Now, her other beautiful and successful daughter was getting married to the best choice of a son-in-law.
Everything was perfect for Meredith.
So why would Cora go and ruin it all? Cora didn’t need to tell her about the restaurant because it would only freak Meredith out that she had no income. She didn’t need to tell Meredith that she’d technically lost her internship, not left it. She didn’t need to tell her about Julian’s problems. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell her about her dad calling about Rylie and his offer to babysit.
No, she would keep that all to herself—no need to freak her mother out. Things could change. She’d had a great internship a couple of days ago, and now she didn’t. A couple of days ago, she had thought she might make something of herself in textiles and design, daydreaming of the buyers making offers on her distinctive style that was one of a kind. Now, they thought Madame Dubois had made them.
Things really could change.
So, no need worrying Meredith.
“I need to move on anyway. My designs didn’t stand out from the rest. I was doing what everyone else was doing. I need to find my own…” She couldn’t find the right word to express her feelings.
“Voice,” Meredith finished for her.
“Voice,” Cora repeated. It was the word her mother used to describe a craft, including her piano playing. Their passion for the arts ran deep in their family bloodline. “So unique no one else could replicate it.”
“I think it’s wonderful that you’re spreading your wings and taking chances,” Meredith said to her in an upbeat tone. “Maybe you could look for other types of work in textiles.”
There was no other type of work , Cora thought to herself, but Meredith didn’t understand how rare her internship with Madame Dubois had been.
”Will you be able to take time off for the wedding with taking this week off for the show?” Meredith asked.
Cora tightened her lips, annoyed her mother seemed more concerned about Muriel’s wedding than her world falling apart.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but if Brandon found out the week she begged to take off for Madame Dubois’s, she was really hanging out in Maine; she was pretty sure he would be less willing to give her more time off.
“What if I found a job around here?” Cora said.
She thought this would make Meredith smile, but it made her look more concerned. The wrinkles deepened on her forehead. “Cora Jacqueline, what is going on?”
Cora couldn’t pretend anymore. She dropped her head onto the table, on top of the book, and moaned.
“I’m lost, like I said.” Cora could feel her throat closing as tears stung the back of her eyes. She would not allow herself to cry, no matter how bad she felt and how good it would feel to release it all. She took a deep breath and tried to explain as best as possible. “I feel like my career should’ve started years ago, and I’m worse off than before.”
“You’re not worse off,” Meredith said. “Think of everything you’ve learned working with Madame Dubois.”
“Yes, I am.” Cora knew her mother was only trying to help, but she was worse off. “I don’t even have references now.”
“You don’t have references from Madame Dubois?” Meredith’s worry turned to confusion. “Cora Jacqueline, what’s going on?”
Meredith’s age showed as her worry lines were triggered. She didn’t know why she was protecting Julian. He’d done literally nothing but destroy everything around her and inside her, like her heart.
What was his visit all about at her apartment? Had it all been fake? Did he have the hangover guilt and want to fix things while he felt sick about it?
“Julian…” she began.
Meredith’s frown deepened at the name. “Don’t tell me you two started up again.”
“Geez, Mom, tell me how you really feel,” Cora said.
Meredith held up her hands. “Sorry. That was uncalled for. You were just so devastated the last time you two were together.”
“I wasn’t so devastated,” Cora lied.
Meredith immediately gave Cora the world’s sappiest look. “You were heartbroken.”
Cora had seen the red flags. They’d been flying in her face. So why didn’t she blame him for everything happening right now?
“I ran into him at the restaurant,” Cora said, annoyed with herself, feeling even more secretive and sneaky. “He’s dating someone, I think.”
She tapped the book with her finger.
“I’m sorry, Cora,” Meredith said, putting her arm on her shoulder. “I know you feel lost, but my advice for you is to really look where you’re going because it’s easy to get even more lost if you take a wrong turn.” She squeezed her, but Cora didn’t know what that meant. How could she look where she’s going if she doesn’t even know where she is?
Every bone in her body told Cora to beg her mother to move in and figure things out at the cottage. Never go back to Boston again. But her ego told her she was a joke. She was almost thirty. Moving back in with her mother would literally be the bottom. Next, they’d book a cruise together.
What had her life come to?
“You know what I have?” Meredith held up her finger, standing straight away. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before!”
Meredith took off out of the dining room and jogged up the staircase. “Are you coming?”
Cora sighed as she got up, following her mother upstairs. “What is it?”
She didn’t want to be given some heirloom she didn’t need or want or know where to put or have to move since she’d probably lose her apartment soon enough.
“Come in here!” Meredith called out of the guest room where Cora had stayed. She stood in the closet between the two bedrooms on that side of the house. “When I first started cleaning out Jacob’s house, I found all this fabric of your grandmother’s in this bedroom, and I put them all in this closet.”
Meredith turned on the light and pulled open a trunk. Inside were dozens upon dozens of folded pieces of fabric of all different kinds. She hadn’t seen fabrics and materials like that in the stores around Boston. “Let’s pull it out into the bedroom.”
Cora and her mother dragged the trunk out.
“This is Grandma’s stuff?” She leafed through the folded pieces, then pulled out the prettiest silk she had ever seen. “Where did she get all of this?”
“It’s got to be fifty years old or more,” Meredith said, pulling out even more material. “Your grandmother was quite a hoarder. She got really into quilting when she lived in Blueberry Bay.”
Cora dug deeper into the trunk when she felt a slip of paper at the bottom. She pulled it out and read the heading—LeCroix Fabrics.
“Look, it’s a handwritten receipt,” Cora said, trying to decipher the written words.
“I wish fabric still cost that much now.” Meredith pointed at the price listed after each bolt of fabric.
“How big were these quilts?” Cora asked.
Meredith shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember your grandmother sewing that much, just painted.”
Meredith lifted herself off the floor, a bit slower than usual. She then shifted the trunk aside and went back into the closet. “That’s full, too.”
Two hours and four blueberry muffins later, Cora had gone through all the material with Meredith. They’d laid it all out, organizing it like a fabric store by material type. Jacqueline must’ve had a soft spot for delicate materials, which didn’t seem like good quilting fabric, but Cora had a feeling that the purchasing of fabric had less to do with quilts and more with the materials. Each and every piece was absolutely stunning, like art. The fabrics had unique textures and were all natural—silk, wool, cotton, and linen.
“What is happening in here?” Quinn asked as he and Gordon walked into the bedroom after coming home from breakfast.
“These are all Jacqueline’s materials I found when I moved into the house,” Meredith said. “I think some of it is Jacob’s mother’s as well, but I thought Cora could take what she wants, and then I guess I’ll donate the rest to the Queen Bees. Your mom could use some of this for the quilters group.”
“They quilt, too?” Cora didn’t really understand what the Queen Bees club was about, but the women and a few men who were part of the group seemed to do everything. They farmed the blueberry fields that grew naturally along the boggy edges of the Maine coastline. They raised bees and sold the honey. They ran the town's annual festival.
Cora held one of the softest pieces in both hands, rubbing it with her fingers. She loved everything about fabrics—the textures, the weights, the feel, the looks, the breathability, the durability. But mainly the design.
“This one is really nice.” She pulled out a linen piece that seemed different than the rest. A crisp, clean, creamy light fabric that rippled like waves. She held it up against her cheek. “It’s so soft.”
Meredith touched the fabric. “It’s gorgeous.”
Cora envisioned her designs printed on the soft material. She’d use the natural dye mixture she’d created during her senior thesis. She’d never use a chemical or azo dyes on that beautiful fabric. Instead, she’d use natural products like turmeric, pomegranate, and blueberries. She’d take her dye mixture and hand paint it on the silkscreen, repeating the pattern but changing the coloration.
The idea of using the soft fabric with one of her stencils and dye kept spinning in her mind long after they’d all left the closet and went on with the rest of the day. She had no stencils here but could easily make her own at the cottage.
When Muriel came home with more work, her sister went to the dining room and pulled out papers to grade. Meredith left with Quinn to run some errands, and Gordon took a nap in the living room.
“I think I’ll just go for a walk,” Cora said to Muriel, who typed on her computer.
“Have fun!” Muriel didn’t look up from what she was doing.
Cora didn’t expect everyone to drop everything when she showed up. She understood they had lives, too. And she knew what she was really looking for no longer existed. She came to Blueberry Bay as a way to go home, but that house had been sold and was only a memory. What she was looking for was something she would never be able to find, not since her parents divorced.
She left the house and followed the dirt path to the barn on the property. The old barn stood in the middle of the blueberry fields that her mother coveted more than anything else these days.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and knew she had to call Brandon. She thought about what she would say as she watched two seagulls land on a rock. She needed to apologize. She took advantage of their friendship. He had also been a solid boss, and she didn’t want to mess up the only job she had at that point.
Knowing he’d already be at the restaurant, she dialed his number and waited for it to ring. The waves coming to shore matched the rhythm of her heart, which felt a little hurried from a bit of nerves.
“Hello,” he answered.
“Hi Brandon,” she said, letting him take a moment before explaining why she called. “How’s it going?”
“Good, you?” he asked.
“Good, good,” she said, but she was stalling. “Look, I just want to apologize for…” Walking out of her shift, making him get involved with Julian, and getting upset when he did. “…Everything.”
“It’s okay,” he said. Right away, she immediately felt better. Thankful he hadn’t held a grudge. “I heard you had a rough night last night at the show.”
“You heard?” Word about the show traveled that fast.
“Yeah, Julian told me,” he said.
“Julian told you?” How did Julian tell Brandon? “You talked to Julian?”
“He stopped by the restaurant,” Brandon said. His voice was short and a bit distant.
Cora hadn’t picked up the phone when Julian called or replied when he texted. He was probably trying to apologize, but how many times can one person apologize? Then she thought about herself, calling Brandon to apologize. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Brandon said. He let out a long sigh. “Look, I don’t know if he wants me to tell you this or not, but he checked himself to rehab this afternoon.”
“Really?” That was great news. “Did he tell his family?”
“No, I don’t think he has.”
Cora looked out the barn window at her mom’s cottage. She could see that most of the lights were on in the house. The autumn afternoon sun had started to drift behind the trees, and its light faded almost into the night. She thought about Muriel and the wedding. How can she keep this a secret?
“Did he go because of what happened with the show?” Did things spiral out of control after he left the show? She knew how drunk he was. How could she send him off like she did? And then ignore him all day? “I should’ve brought him home that night.”
“No, he shouldn’t have shown up at your show,” Brandon said. He sounded annoyed and angry.
“Are we okay?” She honestly couldn’t tell at this point.
“We’re fine,” he said, but it wasn’t convincing. “You need any extra shifts?”
Even though it relieved Cora that she still had a job, the fact that he switched to business so fast made her feel worse than before.
“Brandon,” she said, unwilling to switch the subject. “What happened with Julian?”
Brandon took in a deep breath. “He came back to the restaurant.” He paused for a long time, and Cora’s anxiety grew with each passing second. “And asked for my help.”
“Really?” She tried to imagine it. If Julian had checked himself into rehab, then Brandon must’ve pushed him. “Thank you so much for helping him.”
But Brandon didn’t say anything, and the silence grew longer.
“I should go,” Brandon said.
“Brandon, are you sure we’re okay?” Cora asked.
And the extra pause made her stomach sink.
“Yeah, Cora, we’re good,” Brandon said. But it didn’t make Cora feel any better. “Would you be willing to cover Mia’s shift tomorrow?”
“I can’t,” she said. Now, she felt even worse. She hadn’t expected to be asked to cover. Even though, without the show, she had nothing to do this week but work. She should go back to the city. “I’m in Maine.”
“You went to Maine?” Brandon said something to someone else in the background. “For how long?”
“Just until the end of the week.” But as she looked at the cottage, glowing with its lights on, with her family inside, the last thing she wanted to do was leave. Why would she go back to Boston to her chaos?
“Your pieces were great, by the way,” he said.
“You went to the show?” Another surprise. “Really?”
Not even her father had gone.
“How’d you know which piece of fabric was mine?” she asked, taken aback that he would even know. “It didn’t even have my name on it.”
“You talked about them all the time,” he said, letting out a little laugh. “You were always drawing and working on your stuff during your breaks.”
Brandon had been one of the only people she had really shared her work with in Boston. Her mother and sister knew about her dream of designing textiles, but none of them, her friends, or coworkers at the restaurant understood what she did, except for Brandon. He would ask about her designs, her inspiration, and her processes. He wanted to see her designs. He didn’t seem to feign interest like her father. Or not understand like her sister and mother.
“I can’t believe you went,” she said. And she really couldn’t. “That’s so nice of you.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted to support you,” Brandon said. “They should’ve kicked Julian out. Not you. I’m sorry that happened.”
Cora’s throat began to constrict, and she stood there, holding the phone, unable to talk.
“Anyways, I should get going,” Brandon said.
“Brandon.” She wanted to stop him before he let her go. “Thank you for everything.”
Another heavy silence hung in the air. “No problem.”
She had so many more questions to ask but didn’t feel like Brandon was up for it.
“I’m always going to help,” Brandon said.
“I know,” she said, feeling the guilt flood back. Brandon was helping some stranger for her, and she didn’t even call Julian back. “I owe you a lot.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” But Cora did. That was for certain. “You really care about him, don’t you?”
“His brother’s marrying my sister.” She evaded the question. “He’s going to be semi-family.”
“He’s up in Vermont,” Brandon said. “I’m not sure if he’s told his family, but when I dropped him off, he asked me to be his contact.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, losing a job didn’t look so bad after all. “Wow, Brandon, I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s fine, really,” Brandon said, but something felt off. “I’m glad that I could help.”
“Me, too,” she said, stalling to get off the phone.
“So, how’s Maine,” he asked.
“I’m not sure why I’m here, honestly,” she admitted. “I kind of ran away in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.
“If you’re ever in the mood for a great writing spot, you should come up. You know Meredith would love to have you.” Cora’s mother had been glad Cora had such a good friend in Brandon. Her mother had never been thrilled she lived in the city or worked the late hours she did, but he had been the one Cora could always count on over the years for things she needed help with, like fixing the sink, putting up curtains, and walking her home to make sure she gets home safe.
“I feel terrible about everything?—”
“Cora, please, let’s not talk about it anymore,” he said. “It’s all good.”
And she couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Tears began to run down her cheeks, and there was no way she could talk at this point.
“Cora?” he said after a little bit of her silently crying.
“Hmm, mmm,” she mumbled.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She took a moment to formulate a coherent sentence. “I’m fine. I’m just glad to hear that you liked my designs.”
Brandon didn’t even hesitate. “They were amazing.”
After she let Brandon go, she returned to her mother’s cottage. The rest of the night, the burden of being the only one knowing Julian was in rehabilitation made her anxious and sick to her stomach. If she were to tell someone else, like Muriel, she’d feel horrible telling Julian’s secret. He obviously didn’t want anyone to know, even her. But she did know, and what if her sister and Oliver found out she knew and didn’t tell them?
But why burden them if Julian could actually get clean and come back sober without anyone knowing the difference? Shouldn’t she keep Julian’s secret to keep his pride intact since he’d been working so hard to keep it?
She didn’t know what the right thing to do was.
She got up enough courage to call the treatment center. Julian had checked in, but he wasn’t accepting phone calls. The idea he was alone, going through this, broke her. How bad was he? She tried not to judge. She had never had a problem with alcohol. Thankfully, she didn’t like the feeling and stuck to one or two drinks. But when she was in college, she drank to excess. She had moments where she hadn’t thought clearly or rationally, but she could always stop, say no, and just have one.
Had she been part of the problem? She drank with him. She never told him to slow down or not to drink. She had been delighted he’d order expensive wines and take her to fancy bars where they served top-shelf liquors.
When she couldn’t sleep, she sat in the piano room, looking at the material. She had no idea how she would get back to working in textiles. Everyone knew everything in the small community of textile designers. She would have to design fabric that stood out from all the other professional designers to hopefully catch a buyer’s eye, which seemed impossible without someone like Madame Dubois’s name and reputation.
She played with the soft cloth from her mother’s closet in her hands. It was a linen blend of some kind. She could always spot its gorgeous texture.
She had one week before heading back to the city. At that point, the show would be over, but maybe she could send her designs to some of the buyers she saw at Madame Dubois’s show. She could design a collection of fabrics designed completely by her. She may not work for Madame Dubois, but she could try to get someone to see her designs.
But who? And what designs? Madame Dubois technically owned the designs she had made while working for her and using her things.
She pulled out her sketchpad. All the designs she had made and shared with Madame Dubois were now useless. She flipped through the pages. So much time, work, and research went into her designs. She started tearing out the sheets, one by one, and marched up to the woodstove and threw them in the burning embers. As the pages caught, she watched her life’s work go up in smoke.
From then on, Cora decided she would no longer work for anyone if she had to sign over her designs because they would only be hers. She would never allow anyone to take her credit again.
The next morning, Cora picked up the old receipt in the fabric box.
“I’m going to do some errands,” she said.
“Want company?” Meredith asked as she pulled out a pan of blueberry bread.
“Seriously? More blueberries?” Cora didn’t know how her mother could bake so many different blueberry recipes.
“I have pounds of blueberries in the basement freezer, and I want to use them up before next season.” Meredith pulled off a pair of oven mitts and grabbed a dishtowel Cora recognized from her grandparents’ house. “Besides, I’m learning about myself through all this baking.” Meredith untied her apron. “I can start cleaning up and be ready in less than ten minutes.”
Cora waved her off. Besides, she wanted to be alone. “No, no, I’m fine. I want some time to think anyway.”
“That’s why I bake,” Meredith said, smiling back at her daughter. I always seem to think best when baking… and nibbling.”
Cora kissed her mother on the cheek and grabbed her keys and the folded material, stuffing it into her purse. She left the cottage on a mission. She would find the fabric for her designs.
Cora entered the name of the fabric store on her grandmother’s receipt and crossed her fingers as her phone searched for it. Finally, a location popped up on the screen. LeCroix Fabrics was in a town about fifteen minutes from Blueberry Bay. She started the car and took off.