Lenore opened the door with a dish towel over one shoulder and looked at Coralie’s face.
“What happened?”
“Could I come in before you decide?”
Her aunt moved aside. “I’ve decided nothing.”
Coralie followed her into the kitchen. She had come because Farah was at a family birthday and because sitting alone with her phone had begun to feel like a job she had not agreed to do. She had almost turned around at the end of Lenore’s street. Of all the people she could tell, her aunt was the one most likely to have expected this.
Lenore put on the kettle, then took it off again when Coralie said she did not want anything. The small accommodation nearly undid her.
“He didn’t tell Bryony,” she said.
Lenore pulled out a chair.
Coralie gave the account quickly at first: the invitation, the promise, the uncle, the introduction. She heard her own voice getting sharper as she reached the table. She did not soften the story to protect Stellan, though she felt the urge more than once.
Lenore listened without interrupting. When Coralie finished, her aunt folded the dish towel carefully and laid it beside the sink.
“That was cowardly.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
Coralie told her.
Lenore nodded. “Good.”
“That’s it?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“That you warned me.”
Her aunt’s expression changed, the lines around her mouth deepening. “I don’t want to be right about something that hurts you.”
Coralie looked down at her hands. One nail had a pale mark where she had knocked it against a table. She rubbed it with her thumb.
“I liked him so much on Monday,” she said.
Lenore waited.
“I still do. That’s what makes me feel stupid.”
“You’d feel worse if you could turn it off on command.”
Coralie let out a breath that might have become a laugh under better circumstances. Her aunt leaned back in the chair, then shifted because her hands were stiff. Coralie noticed and reached automatically for the kettle.
“Sit down,” Lenore said. “If I want help, I’ll ask.”
She sat. The quiet between them was familiar enough to be bearable.
Coralie rubbed the pale mark on her thumbnail.
“I wanted to take the flowers back.”
Her aunt laughed, a brief startled sound. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Shame. I’d have liked to see that.”
Coralie laughed too, then wiped her eyes because they had begun leaking without permission. Lenore slid a box of tissues across the table and looked out of the window, giving her room to use them.
After a while, her aunt asked whether Stellan had been in touch. Coralie showed her the messages. Lenore read them, put on her glasses, and read them again.
“He hasn’t blamed the girl,” she said.
“No.”
“That’s something.”
“Not enough.”
“I didn’t say enough.”
Coralie took back the phone. She wanted a decision to appear in the exchange, something she could obey. End it. Forgive him. Give him three days. Instead she had only her aunt’s company and the irritating knowledge that she would still have to choose.
Lenore rose and began putting away dishes. Coralie helped this time because her aunt handed them to her. They moved around each other in the small kitchen, the old routine taking some of the heat out of the morning.
On the counter lay a blouse with one cuff turned inside out. Coralie recognized the fabric from a dress her aunt had made years ago. Lenore followed her glance.
“I’ve been putting that off.”
“Do you want me to finish it?”
“Not today.”
Coralie touched the cuff. The tiny stitches were uneven where Lenore’s hands had made the work difficult. She stopped herself from turning it over for a closer look.
“I could do it quickly,” she said, then heard herself and winced.
Lenore gave her a dry look. “I know you could.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s mine. I might leave it crooked.”
Coralie put it down. They had spent so many hours in rooms like this, making things for other people, that she sometimes forgot her aunt might want to keep a small, imperfect piece of the work for herself. Lenore folded the blouse and set it aside without asking Coralie whether the cuff was good enough.
“I was wearing that the first time you brought Gareth here,” she said.
Coralie stiffened.
“I liked him,” Lenore added. “You may remember. I got that wrong as well.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Neither did you.”
Coralie looked at the folded blouse. She did remember that dinner: Gareth helping clear, her aunt approving of his manners, Coralie pleased to have brought someone who fitted so easily into the room. She did not want to put last night beside it and build a rule that would keep her safe from every future dinner.
“I don’t think Stellan is the same,” she said.
“Then you’ll have to find out what he is.”
Her aunt said it with irritation, as though annoyed that life still required such work. Coralie found that easier to bear than confidence. She dried the last plate and put it away.
“I thought you didn’t want me involved with a widower,” Coralie said.
“I thought it would be difficult.”
“It is.”
“So are men whose wives are alive. So are men who never had one. I may have concentrated on the wrong difficulty.”
Coralie put a plate in the cupboard. “You’re revising your position?”
“Don’t sound so delighted. I haven’t endorsed him.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know him well enough. I know you. You don’t have to accept this because you’ve already been hurt once this year.”
The words landed badly at first. Coralie turned. “I wasn’t going to.”
Lenore held up a hand. “All right. Then ignore me.”
It was the wrong advice at the wrong moment, but the way she withdrew it helped. Coralie closed the cupboard and leaned against the counter.
“I don’t want every choice I make to be about Gareth,” she said.
“Then don’t make this one about him.”
“I’m trying.”
Her aunt nodded. She did not ask her to try harder.
Stellan called just after Coralie got home. She had left her bag by the door and was halfway through opening the window. His name appeared on the screen. She let it ring once more before answering, giving herself time to remember that hearing his voice did not require any particular answer from her.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Is now all right?”
“Yes.”
He breathed in, audibly. “I’ve spoken to Bryony.”
Coralie sat on the arm of the sofa. “What did you tell her?”
“That we’re seeing each other. That I should have told her before yesterday. That you came because I’d asked you as someone I was with, not because of the dress.”
She shut her eyes briefly. Hearing the words now made their absence last night more painful, not less.
“And?”
“She’s angry with me.”
He stopped. Coralie waited rather than filling the gap.
“She asked whether I thought she was a child. I said no. She said I’d treated her like one.”
“Did you tell her I asked you to wait?”
“No. You didn’t. I asked.”
She looked at the open window. Somewhere below, a car door shut.
“I told her that,” he added. “And I told my uncle I introduced you badly. He knows now.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wondered why you left.”
The ordinary answer almost hurt more. No family crisis had followed the information. Stellan had built the whole evening around avoiding a reaction that might never have come.
“I’d like to apologize in person,” he said.
Coralie rubbed the seam of the sofa beneath her palm. She wanted to see him. She wanted him far enough away that she could keep thinking clearly.
“Not today.”
“All right.”
“I’m glad you told her. I am. But I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t say you know if you’re waiting for me to stop.”
He was quiet long enough that she wondered whether she had been unfair. Then he said, “I am hoping you’ll stop. But I don’t think you’ve had enough time.”
The clumsy honesty reached her. She did not want it to, but it did.
“No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
He told her Bryony was worried about the dress. Coralie felt her shoulders rise.
“Worried how?”
“Whether she’ll make you uncomfortable coming in.”
“Her appointment stays. The work stays. I won’t make her wedding dependent on whether you and I are all right.”
“I said I thought that would be—”
“Don’t promise for me.”
He stopped. “You’re right.”
“I’ll tell her myself if she asks. But I’m not going to explain your choices to her.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Good.”
There was another silence. This one felt less like a gap waiting for her to repair it. She could hear something in his background, perhaps a door opening, then closing again.
“I miss you,” he said.
Her throat tightened. “That’s not a useful thing to say right now.”
“Sorry.”
“I didn’t say it was untrue.”
He let out a breath. She could picture him standing in his kitchen with one hand braced against the counter. The picture made her ache, and she stood up to move away from it.
“I need to go,” she said.
“Can I call tomorrow?”
“I’ll let you know.”
He accepted that. She ended the call before either of them could turn it into a substitute for the conversation they still needed.
For the next hour she tried to work on the course proposal. She wrote a sentence about welcoming beginners and disliked it. She rewrote it in plain words and disliked that too. At last she put the paper away and went for a walk without choosing a destination.
Before leaving, she changed out of the shirt she had worn to her aunt’s. The clean shirt from Monday lay folded on a chair, waiting to be put away. She picked it up and remembered Stellan’s hand beneath the collar, the way he had looked at her when she came back through his front door with the overnight bag.
She had wanted that night. She still wanted it in her memory. She was not going to let his failure at dinner make her ashamed of having gone to bed with him.
The thought steadied her enough to put the shirt in its drawer. Then she took it out again and wore it. It was comfortable, and it was hers. Outside, she walked quickly at first, as though she could leave the argument in the apartment. By the time she reached the park, she was simply walking.
In the park, a woman was teaching a child to ride a bicycle. The child wanted the steadying hand removed and then shouted when it was. Coralie sat on a bench long enough to see him manage three unsteady yards by himself. The woman applauded too loudly. He looked furious, then pleased.
Coralie had brought her phone but left it in her pocket. Twice she felt for it without taking it out. She wanted a message that would make her certain: something so wrong she could leave, or so right she could stop being afraid. She knew that was too much to ask of a few lines on a screen.
The bicycle child fell, not badly, and got up angry. The woman waited while he inspected his knee. Coralie looked away. She watched a dog trying to carry a branch through a gap too narrow for it instead. The dog refused to change direction. Eventually its owner went around the other side of the hedge and called it through a wider opening. Coralie smiled, then got up to go home.
She thought of Bryony being told about a relationship that had already been happening around her. Coralie had been angry at being hidden. The girl might be angry at having been judged unable to bear the truth. Those were not the same grievance, though Stellan had managed to create them together.
Coralie did not need Bryony to approve of her. She did need the girl to know that the dress, and the care she had taken with it, had not been an audition for a place beside her father.
She went home before she could turn that thought into a speech.
Bryony’s message arrived while she was making a sandwich.
Dad told me. Could we talk tomorrow? Not at a fitting. I don’t want to do it while you’re holding pins.
Coralie read the last sentence twice, unsure whether it was a joke. Then she smiled a little. Perhaps Bryony was unsure too.
Yes, she wrote. Would the café near the shop suit you? Four?
The reply came quickly.
Yes. Thank you. I have questions and I might be awkward.
Coralie leaned against the counter.
So might I.
She sent it before she could replace it with something smoother. Bryony answered with a thumbs-up, which gave away almost nothing. Coralie put the phone down and finished making the sandwich. Tomorrow, at least, they would both know why they were there.