Chapter 10
Emma brought the yellow curtains home for a weekend in September.
She had taken them down while her apartment windows were repaired. She said she wanted me to see how much straighter the stitches looked after a few months of practice.
“They still tilt to the left,” I told her.
“So does your kitchen table.”
“The floor tilts.”
“That’s what you’ve said for twenty years.”
I watched her laugh in the doorway, her overnight bag hanging from one shoulder. A year earlier, she had left this house carrying boxes she did not want me to see. Now she walked in because she chose to.
We made Rachel’s pasta together. Emma handled the sauce while I set the table. When I reached for the wrong jar of herbs, she took it from me and placed the right one beside the stove.
“You’re trusting me with dinner?” she asked.
“I’m trusting you with the part you do better.”
“That’s most of it.”
“Then I’ll wash the dishes.”
Her job was going well. She had taken the lead on a small project to make a neighborhood playground easier for children with different mobility needs. She showed me sketches while the sauce simmered.
“I talked to the families first,” she said. “They noticed things we wouldn’t have seen from an office.”
“Rachel would have loved that.”
“I think so too.”
After dinner, Emma took a small box from her bag.
Inside was a brass key on a blue ribbon.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The key to my apartment.”
“You already gave me one for emergencies.”
“This one’s for visits. I don’t want every trip to Richmond to feel like you need a reason.”
I held the key in my palm.
“Thank you.”
“I’m keeping the one to this house,” she added. “I might not live here, but I know I’m welcome.”
“You always are.”
“I know that now.”
We sat at the dining table after the dishes were done. The house was quiet. Emma traced the grain of the wood with one finger.
“Can I tell you something I didn’t say last year?”
“Anything.”
“When Vanessa first asked for rent, I almost came to you. Then she said you were ashamed I still lived here. I looked at all the nights you came home tired, and I believed I might have missed how you felt.”
“I’m sorry I gave you so little time to ask.”
“You give me time now.”
“I want to keep doing that.”
She nodded. She did not need me to promise we would never misunderstand each other again. We had both learned that the better promise was to keep talking.
Later, I brought Rachel’s old photograph into the sewing room. In it, Emma was thirteen, sitting on the floor while her mother worked at the machine. Rachel had one hand on Emma’s shoulder and was smiling at something outside the frame.
“I want to hang this here,” I said.
Emma chose the wall beside the window. I held the frame while she checked whether it was straight.
“A little to the right,” she said.
I moved it.
“Now?”
“Perfect.”
She stepped closer to the photograph.
“I was showing Mom a drawing that day. She told me to keep it.”
“Do you still have it?”
“In a box in Richmond. I’ll bring it next time.”
We went back to the kitchen for cake. I cut two pieces for her and one for myself. She caught me watching her take a bite.
“I really do like it now,” she said.
“I believe you.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder.
The room where I had once found her counting rent money held an empty cake plate, our keys, and the plans she wanted to show me tomorrow. She did not have to pay to sit there. She did not have to hide a hard question to keep me close.
“I’m glad you came home,” I said.
May you like
Emma took my hand.
“I’m glad I can leave for my own place and still say that’s what I’m doing.”
