10. Nell
NELL
I was on the floor checking the third hemmer when Kiana came over.
"Someone's here for you," she said.
I didn't look up. "Tell them I'll be out in ten."
"She says it's personal."
I ran my hand along the seam where the binding met the edge. The tension was off by half a thread. Not enough to flag for most work, but hospital blankets went through two hundred washes and anything that wouldn't hold came apart at wash seventy-three.
My mother had set that standard. Told the hospital they could have two hundred washes for the same price when they'd asked for one-fifty.
I adjusted the tension guide and ran the seam again.
"Ten minutes," I said.
Kiana hesitated. "She's got a car blocking the loading bay. Ray asked her to move it and she said she was waiting for you."
I straightened.
"Who is it?"
"I don't know. Fancy car. She's wearing a coat that probably costs more than my rent."
I wiped my hands on my work pants and followed Kiana across the floor.
The woman was standing just inside the door. Tall. Dark hair pulled back. The kind of coat you saw in magazines, not mill country. She was holding a garment bag over one arm.
Nobody had offered to take her coat.
She was looking around the floor like she was trying to figure out where the entrance actually was. Like she'd come in through the wrong door and couldn't work out how to get to the front.
Kiana went back to the cutting table, then turned around.
"Are you the temp?" she asked.
The woman's face went very still.
She looked at Kiana for a long moment. Then she said, very clearly, "No."
I crossed the floor toward them.
Hazel had stopped what she was doing at the table. Dorcas was watching from her station. Ray was still standing by the loading bay with his wrench, waiting to see if he needed to ask about the car again.
I reached the door.
"Can I help you?" I said.
The woman turned to me. Her face was composed. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with Ardis, North Carolina. The kind of face you saw on covers.
"Mrs. Crowe," she said. "I'm Talia de Valois."
The name landed and I felt it settle in my chest like a stone.
I knew the name. I knew her face. I'd seen both in the press release Beckett sent me three weeks ago. The one that said partnership. The one that went live while I was in the air coming home.
"I know who you are," I said.
"May we speak privately?"
I looked at the garment bag. Then at her.
"What's this about?"
"I've come to return something that belongs to you. Or belonged to your husband's house, at any rate. The contract has been terminated."
The words hit me and I went very still.
Terminated.
Hazel was watching from the table. Dorcas had her hands on the cloth but she wasn't moving it. Ray was still by the loading bay. Kiana was at the cutting table with her head half-turned toward us.
They were all waiting to see what I'd do.
"There's an office," I said. "Upstairs."
I didn't wait for her to follow. I walked across the floor and up the stairs and she came behind me, the garment bag over her arm.
The office was ten by twelve with a desk, two chairs, and a window that looked out over the floor. I closed the door behind us.
She stood in the middle of the room with the garment bag over her arm, looking around like she was cataloging it. The cracked plaster. The filing cabinet with the broken drawer. The window that didn't quite close.
I stayed by the door.
"You didn't have to come all this way," I said. "You could have sent it."
"I wanted to deliver it personally."
"Why?"
"Because it seemed right."
"Right for who?"
She laid the garment bag across the desk and unzipped it.
The dress was ivory. Hand-finished, perfect.
I looked at it and felt something cold settle in my stomach.
"This was made for the wedding line," she said. "Since the contract is over, it seemed right to return it."
I looked at the dress. Then at her.
"You came five hours to return a dress."
"I came five hours because I thought you should hear the truth from someone who isn't lying to you."
My chest tightened.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." Her voice was calm. Kind, even. "You've known something was wrong for a long time. You just didn't know what it was."
I crossed my arms. Kept my voice level.
"If you have something to say, say it."
"All right." She took a breath. "He told me he had it handled. That you were fine where you were. That you understood the work came first. That he'd take care of you properly after the wedding line shipped." She paused. "That you were patient. Understanding."
I didn't move.
"He said you were the easiest part of his life," she said quietly. "She's the one thing I don't have to manage."
The floor dropped out.
I'd heard him say that.
In those exact words.
You're the one thing in my life I don't have to worry about. Do you know what that means to me? You're the one thing I don't have to work on. Everything else is a fight, Nell. Everything. But not you. Not us.
He'd said it in the car after the gala.
As a compliment.
To my face.
"I don't believe you," I said.
"I know." She picked up the dress, turned it inside out, and held it so I could see the seams.
Hand-finishing. Hours of it. The kind of work you did alone, late, when nobody was watching. When you wanted it perfect.
I stepped closer.
I knew Beckett's hand the way I knew my own.
I could tell which of my fourteen people had sewn a piece by the way the thread sat in the cloth. I'd been reading hands since I was sixteen, standing beside my mother on a floor just like the one downstairs.
This was his.
Every stitch.
I ran my thumb along one of the seams. Felt the tension, the spacing, the way the thread pulled through. The way he worked when he was doing something that mattered.
She let me look. Didn't rush me. Didn't say a word.
The cloth was from Ivester Woolen.
I knew it by the weight. By the weave. By the way it held the light and the way it would drape and the way it would feel after two hundred washes.
My own cloth.
In a dress he'd made for her.
I looked at the bodice. At the way the darts were set. At the way the neckline was finished. At every single detail that told me he'd sat with this for hours.
For months.
"He sat up until four in the morning doing this himself," she said quietly. "He told me it mattered. That it had to be perfect."
I handed the dress back to her.
My hands were steady.
She took it. Started to fold it back into the bag.
Then she stopped and looked at me.
Her voice was light now, almost careless.
"You came all that way and didn't say hello."
The words hit like a fist.
I went very still.
"What?"
"Three weeks ago. You flew to New York. You came to the building and you stood in his workroom." She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "I was there. In the mirror. I saw you."
My throat closed.
"He had his back turned," she said. "He didn't know you were there. But I did."
She'd seen me.
She'd watched me standing in that doorway looking at my husband's back while he bent over his table, and she'd been in that room with him, and she'd said nothing.
And I'd turned around and left.
I felt the floor tilt under me and I locked my knees and refused to let it take me down.
"It's good work. Take it with you."
My voice came out steady. Calm.
She zipped the garment bag closed. Looked at me for a long moment.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be."
"He's very good at making people feel like they're enough," she said. "Until they're not."
She picked up the bag and walked to the door.
I didn't move.
She opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind her.
I stood in the office with my hand on the desk and my legs locked under me and I did not cry.
I could hear her heels on the stairs. Hear the door open downstairs. Hear the car start outside.
Then silence.
I looked out the window at the floor below.
Fourteen people. Machines running. Work moving the way it always moved.
Hazel was looking up at me from the table. She had the ledger open in front of her but she wasn't looking at it.
She was looking at me.
Waiting to see if I was going to fall apart.
Dorcas had turned back to her machine. Ray was gone, probably back to the engine room. Kiana was at the cutting table with her head down.
They were giving me space.
Pretending they hadn't heard anything. Pretending a crown princess hadn't just walked out of my office with a garment bag.
I turned away from the window.
Walked to the desk. Picked up the phone.
I called the number I'd been given six years ago and told never to hesitate to use.
A man answered on the second ring.
"Mrs. Crowe."
"I need the plane," I said. "Today. As soon as you can get it here."
"Of course. Where are you going?"
"New York."
There was a pause. Half a second. Then he said, "I'll have the car there in thirty minutes."
I hung up.
Walked downstairs.
The floor was quiet. Everyone was working but I could feel them watching me.
I crossed to Hazel.
"I have to go," I said.
She looked at me. "Where?"
"New York."
"How long?"
"I don't know."
She nodded. Didn't ask anything else. Didn't ask what the princess had wanted or what she'd said or why I looked like I'd been hit.
"The hospital shipment's due Friday," she said.
"I know."
"Ray's got the third hemmer sorted. Dorcas is running the binding on lot forty-two."
"Good."
"You need me to call anyone?"
"No."
She nodded.
"I'll hold things here," she said.
I went home. Changed into the one dress I owned that looked like it belonged in his building. Got back in the car.
I took the plane.
I'd been on it six times in six years. Every time alone. Every time because Beckett had sent it and I was going somewhere he'd arranged and I'd said yes because it was easier than explaining why I didn't want to go.
The Met. A show. A dinner with people I didn't know who called me Mrs. Crowe and asked polite questions about North Carolina like it was another country.
This time I'd called it myself.
The driver met me at the airfield. Opened the door. I got in and sat in the leather seat and looked out the window as we taxied.