19. Lucille
— ? —
Lucille
A week later, and Ginny Davies has become a cautionary tale.
Her social media accounts have gone dark, no tearful updates, no victim narratives, just radio silence from the woman who spent months trying to destroy my marriage.
The industry has moved on with its characteristic short attention span, already chasing the next scandal, the next drama, the next shiny object to dissect.
I almost feel sorry for her.
Almost.
The divorce petition has been formally withdrawn, a simple filing that took ten minutes and felt like closing a book I’d been holding open for too long.
The legal thread is done, snipped clean, and the marriage that started as an arrangement and nearly ended in ruins is now a different thing entirely.
A choice. Made freely, by both of us.
I’ve moved back into the house, which still feels strange sometimes.
The closet that was emptied when I left is slowly filling again, my clothes hanging beside Hugo’s in a domesticity I’m still learning to trust. My mother’s sewing kit sits on the dresser.
My sketches are pinned to the walls of the guest room I’ve converted into a temporary workspace.
But my studio downtown is still mine. Adler Design is still mine. That was non-negotiable, and Hugo understood without me having to explain. I need a world that exists outside of us. A space that belongs to me alone.
He’s been surprisingly good about it. Better than good, actually. He drops me off in the mornings when our schedules align, brings me lunch when I forget to eat, and never once complains about the hours I spend building a career that has nothing to do with him.
“I’m proud of you,” he said last night, watching me review fabric samples at the kitchen table. “Have I mentioned that?”
“About forty times this week.”
“Forty-one now.” He kissed my temple. “I’m going to keep saying it until you believe me.”
I’m starting to believe him.
That’s the most surprising part, not that Hugo has changed, but that I’ve let myself trust the change.
After two years of disappointment, after all the broken promises and empty chairs, some part of me expected this to fall apart.
Expected him to retreat into work, to disappear into the studio, to prove that the vineyard was a fluke and the real Hugo was the one who forgot anniversaries.
But every morning, he’s there. Every evening, he comes home. Every night, he reaches for me in the dark like I’m the only thing that matters.
I’m learning to believe that too.
***
My father appears at the studio on a Tuesday afternoon.
I’m in the middle of a fitting with a new client, a tech executive who wants a capsule wardrobe for her upcoming speaking engagements, when the buzzer sounds. I ignore it, assuming it’s a delivery, but then my assistant appears in the doorway with an uncomfortable expression.
“There’s a man here to see you,” she says. “He says he’s your father.”
The client looks up with interest. “Should I step out?”
“No, I’ll…” I take a breath. “Give me five minutes. I’ll meet him in the front.”
I find my father standing awkwardly by the reception desk, looking profoundly out of place among the fabric bolts and dress forms. He’s wearing a suit, because Albert Adler always wears a suit, but there’s a difference in his posture. A quality that looks almost like humility.
“Lucille.” He nods stiffly. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“You are, actually. I have a client.”
“I can wait.”
“That might be a while.”
“I’ll wait.”
I study him for a long moment, trying to read the play. My father doesn’t do unannounced visits. He doesn’t do humble. Whatever brought him here is significant, and part of me wants to make him squirm a little longer.
But a larger part of me is tired of carrying anger like a weapon.
“Fifteen minutes,” I say. “There’s a coffee shop on the corner. I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
He nods and leaves without argument, which is strange enough that I spend the rest of the fitting distracted.
***
The coffee shop is quiet when I arrive, my father already seated at a corner table with an untouched espresso in front of him. He stands when he sees me, old-fashioned manners, drilled in since childhood, and waits for me to sit before lowering himself back into his chair.
“Thank you for seeing me,” he says.
“You didn’t give me much choice.”
“I know.” He stares at his espresso. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to you for weeks. I kept starting letters and throwing them away. I kept picking up the phone and putting it down.”
“And yet you showed up at my workplace without warning.”
“Because I was afraid if I called first, you’d tell me not to come.”
He’s not wrong.
“What do you want, Dad?”
He looks up at me, and for the first time I can remember, my father looks old. Not just aged, old. Worn down by a burden greater than years.
“I want to apologize,” he says simply. “What you said at the mixer, about trading you for an alliance, about teaching you that being useful was the price of being loved, it hasn’t left me. I’ve thought about it every day since.”
I don’t respond. I just wait.
“You were right.” The words seem to cost him dearly. “I told myself I was doing what was best for you. I told myself the Kensington match would give you security, stability, a life free from the financial worries your mother and I faced early in our marriage. I told myself it was a kindness.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No. It wasn’t.” He shakes his head slowly. “It was an arrangement that benefited me. It secured the family’s position. It gave me access to the Kensington network. And I dressed it up as paternal concern because I couldn’t face what I was actually doing.”
I take a sip of the coffee I ordered, letting the silence stretch.
“Your mother would have been ashamed of me,” he continues.
“She married me for love, against her own family’s wishes.
She believed that connection mattered more than convenience.
And when she died, I forgot all of that.
I was so afraid of losing you the way I lost her that I tried to control everything, including who you married. ”
“You didn’t try to control it. You did control it.”
“You’re right.” He meets my eyes. “I did. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you like a chess piece instead of a daughter. I’m sorry I prioritized alliances over your happiness. I’m sorry I spent two years watching your marriage struggle and telling myself it was none of my business.”
The apology sits between us, with more weight than I expected.
Part of me wants to accept it. Part of me wants to reach across the table and take my father’s hand and tell him it’s okay, that I forgive him, that we can move forward.
But that’s the part of me that spent two years making herself small to earn love. That part of me isn’t in charge anymore.
“An apology is a start,” I say finally. “It’s not an ending.”
His face falls slightly.
“I’m not going to forgive you today just because you finally said the words. Forgiveness isn’t a gift you earn with one conversation, Dad. It’s a bridge you build over time, through actions, through showing up differently.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because you’ve spent my entire life teaching me that words are enough. That saying the right thing matters more than doing the right thing.” I set down my coffee cup. “I don’t believe that anymore.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t figured that out.” I stand, gathering my bag. “But the door isn’t closed. That’s the best I can offer you right now.”
He stands too, his espresso still untouched.
“That’s more than I deserve.”
“Maybe.” I pause at the edge of the table. “I need to get back to my client. But Dad…”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you came. I’m glad you said what you said. Just… don’t expect it to fix everything overnight.”
“I won’t.” He attempts a smile. “Your mother would be proud of you, Lucille. The business you’re building, the woman you’ve become. She would be so proud.”
I feel my eyes sting.
“I know,” I say. “That’s the one thing I’ve never doubted.”
I leave him standing in the coffee shop and walk back to my studio, and the anger I’ve been carrying feels a little lighter.
Not gone. Just lighter.
It’s a start.
***
Three days later, Hugo is nominated for Best Original Composition at the Music Industry Awards.
He’d put the song out himself, a few weeks after he walked away from the label.
No campaign, no machine behind it, just the track under his own name, once the lawyers untangled him from the old contract.
The album he’d guarded for three years went out the same way: quietly, independently, on his own terms. He hadn’t released any of it expecting anyone to notice.
The song is one he wrote during our separation, a raw, aching piece about blindness and awakening, about a woman who fixed things in secret. He played it for me at the vineyard, sitting at the out-of-tune piano with tears in his eyes, and I understood that it was about me.
About us.
“You have to come,” he says when the nomination is announced. “I’m not walking that red carpet without you.”
“Hugo, I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You’re a designer. You have an entire studio full of things to wear.”
“I have an entire studio full of things for other people to wear. That’s different.”
“Then make a piece for yourself.” He wraps his arms around me from behind, chin resting on my shoulder. “Create your masterpiece. Show up as my partner and knock every single person in that room off their feet.”
So I do.
The gown takes two weeks, two weeks of late nights and early mornings, of fabric swatches and draping and the particular obsession that comes from making a truly important garment.
I choose crimson silk, dramatic and bold, with a train that pools behind me like liquid fire.
The bodice is structured, almost armor-like, with boning that creates precise, clean lines.