injured animal. “Are you okay?”
She blinks up at me and smiles. I remember how to breathe. “How was your dinner, darling? I expected you to be later.”
Sitting beside her on the bed, I lift her hand into mine. “Fine. Just chatting about Chicago life. What did you do while I was gone?”
“I watched Downton Abbey.” Her eyes return to the closet then she stands and goes inside it.
Standing, I follow her and reach inside to flip on the light. Dozens of suits hang on an L-shaped bar, and I know at once whose they are. “What are you doing, dearest?”
“It’s time I got rid of these,” she says softly. “When it happened, I couldn’t begin to think of packing your father’s clothes. Now it seems silly to hang onto them.”
Stepping further into the small closet, my senses are assaulted with the scent of my father. Stomach churning, I hold her waist, standing slightly behind her as I face the charcoal, tweed, and grey sleeves of the neatly lined coats.
“It’s been eight years,” I whisper, placing my chin on the top of her shoulder. “They still smell like him.”
“Do they?” Her voice is soft, distant. I watch as she lifts a sleeve and holds it to her nose.
The pain of her action tightens in my throat, and I want to cry. I want to run away and not be a part of anything that could hurt her. She feels me hiccup a breath and turns her head.
“Do you miss him?” Her voice is soft, gentle like always.
Words escape me. It’s a question I never ask myself, and I don’t know how to answer it. “Do you?”
For a moment, silence fills the small space. Silence and the overpowering memory of my father. “Living with him was hard.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say a negative word about him. My heart beats faster, but I take the chance. “Did you always love him?”
She’s quiet. Several moments pass as she seems to ponder my question, and I wonder if she’ll answer me. As I’ve grown older, our relationship has matured. We approach each other as adults and share things I never would have dreamed when I was a teenager. Still, there are secrets mothers and daughters keep from each other.
“When we lost Sophie...” Her voice breaks off, and she’s quiet again.
I’ve only heard stories of the baby girl still-born between Stuart and Patrick. Once when I was younger, I found a drawer filled with tiny, pink baby things. A small, hand-knit blanket made of the softest silk yarn, a little white bib embroidered with ESK, Ella Sophie Knight, a small silver Tiffany’s rattle. I’d asked my mother whom these things belonged to, since they clearly weren’t mine, and she’d told me the story of my sister, who died before taking her first breath.
Without realizing, my arms have tightened around her waist. I only want to hold her, protect her from this pain in her past.
Clearing her throat she continues. “He was not a gentle sort of man, and rather than growing closer, we each withdrew after it happened.”
My voice is so quiet, I sound like a little girl. “But you had Patrick... and me.”
Her hand covers mine, sliding up and down my forearm. “Stuart was such a perceptive child. We wanted him to have a happy home. I wanted that.” She takes a breath, and exhales slowly. “Your father was so handsome. Women always admired him, and I guess it gave me a sense of pride. It wasn’t difficult to try harder.”
Hearing her say these things fills me with anger, and I have to swallow the bile rising in the back of my throat. “So you stayed with him?”
“Of course!” She says it like the very idea of anything else is preposterous. “We had the two of you, and after that, my life was so full...”
Her life was so full, she didn’t have to worry about her empty marriage. Lowering my forehead against her neck, I inhale deeply of her lingering Chanel fragrance. I want her, only her, to banish the memories of what he did. I want her to find happiness. I want her to be free.
Releasing her waist, I leave the closet and its bad memories. “I’ll help you clean them out. I’ll take them all to Goodwill, and it’ll be done.”
She follows me back into the room, a wistful smile on her face. “Not yet. I need to check with the boys and see if they want any of