She should have seen it. In retrospect, had seen it. Jaspar going to bed early to avoid her when she knew full well he felt bedtime was for “little kids” and was always pushing the limits; her one visit to their house a perfect excuse. Somehow arranging never to sit by her at the opera, not even when his sister did. Perhaps especially not when his sister did.
When they’d first met, the boy had been such a bright and shining light. Somehow she’d missed the change as he shifted toward the Overlord’s darkness.
Maria just let her talk, slowly brushing at her hair until she was done. Run dry of all emotion.
“I have to leave, Maria. I can’t stay. Not even in Seattle. I would think of them all nearby. Worse, I might see them. I can’t do that. I can’t.”
“You were never dumb, Perrin my girl.”
“Except about men.”
“You were never dumb,” Maria made it such a definitive statement that Perrin couldn’t argue. “Perhaps less than sensible at times, but you always knew exactly what you were doing even when you were mistaken to do it.”
“I know this time too, Mama Maria. Honest I do.”
Maria pushed her upright until they were facing each other. She was silent for the longest time, just looking up at Perrin with those dark eyes that demanded honesty.
“I didn’t say that I won’t hate leaving, but it’s the best for everyone, Maria. You know that.”
“Not best for you, my girl.”
“I can’t put that ahead of what’s best for Bill’s family. I know I should, but I can’t. I care about them too much. It will be okay. I’m used to it being hard.”
“And do you think that you’ll hurt them less by leaving?”
That one she didn’t have an answer to. She’d seen Bill’s eyes as she’d said goodbye. He’d been devastated before the words even registered. She was just glad that Russell had stopped him and Cassidy had followed in his stead, because she might not have had the heart to run away from Bill. Tamara would be shattered as well.
“Oh, Maria,” Perrin clasped the blanket more tightly and folded both fists over her aching heart, “anything I do makes it worse.” She hung her head.
Maria raised her chin with a gentle hand. “So, we do this one step at a time.”
“We?” It was the most heartening word Perrin had ever heard. Because she certainly couldn’t do this on her own. “What next step?”
“You already know, sweetheart.” Maria pulled her down enough to kiss her on the top of the head, just as she had the day she’d told Perrin she’d wished to have had Perrin as her daughter. “You know, you just wish you didn’t.”
Perrin thought a moment, then nodded. She knew. It was so hard, but she knew.
Bill collapsed at his dining room table, too exhausted to breathe, way too tired to make a drink or eat any dinner. At least they were all home.
Back at the hospital, on the way back into ER to see Jaspar, Tammy had spilled about what exactly had happened on the bow of the boat and why they’d been fighting to begin with.
Perrin. Of all idiotic, clueless, idiot moves he’d made as a single father, that one took the cake. Perrin had opened a new world for Tammy, giving her a gift of such magnitude that his daughter was growing and changing daily as she scrambled to take it all in. And Perrin had done the same for him, showing him that a part of his heart he had thought forever dead, still existed. Actually, it thrived beneath her shining radiance, her Empress’ touch upon his heart proving to be a benediction beyond price.
But he’d missed what was up with Jaspar. Missed how many times Jaspar had come in to ask for help with homework. Because Tammy wasn’t around anymore. “Just another hour, buddy.” Which had turned into two or three as he worked to keep the opera on track. He’d barely registered when Jaspar had drifted away to the technical crews to get away from him as well.
Man! There had to be more ways he could mess up as a parent, but he didn’t know what they were.
He’d known better than to confront it head-on with Jaspar. It would be too obvious that Tammy had told him and it would just drive them all further apart.
He wished he could ask Perrin, she was so good at these things. But she hadn’t answered any of his surreptitious calls made out of earshot of the kids. He didn’t know if she ever would again. Russell’s statement, about how Perrin always got her way, scared him. It wasn’t that she was manipulative, but she was tenacious as anything when adhering to what she believed to be right; a trait he appreciated under any other circumstance.
He still hadn’t worked up the nerve to call Maria, and now it was probably too late.
He lay his head on the table trying not to think of his son in a drugged sleep with a cast in his bedroom. Or of Tammy, refusing to leave the chair beside Jaspar until she’d fallen asleep against the foot of the bed and Bill practically had to carry her to her own bed.
The buzz of his phone jerked him from his stupor. He fumbled it from his pocket. Just a text. From a number he didn’t recognize. He almost deleted it, but decided it couldn’t hurt to look.
I’m okay. So sorry.
Tell Tammy not to come tomorrow.
I will call. But not yet.
-P
Bill blinked hard, could feel the burning in his eyes. He wiped at them and his hand came away wet. Who knew he’d be the one in the relationship who cried. He thought he was done with that after Adira’s death. All he could think was how hard it must have been for Perrin to send that message after the things she’d said.
And how desperate he was to cling onto even the tiniest thread of hope.
Chapter 18
“You look très misérable, Perrin.” Melanie’s light greeting did nothing to cheer Perrin. She sat alone in her design studio and wondered why she bothered. A place where she always found joy and inspiration now only felt empty. She kept wanting to glance over her shoulder and see Tamara’s intent frown as she concentrated on pinning a seam just right. To hear the girl’s laughter at the simple joy of learning something new.
And each of those thoughts was accompanied with the void where Jaspar stood. She didn’t know how he looked when upset, happy, sad, mischievous… Perrin had inklings, but they weren’t anchored in her heart the way Tamara’s were. It wasn’t that she loved Tamara better, a grown-up couldn’t afford to do that between children, but Perrin certainly knew her better.
“Perrin?”
“Sorry, Melanie. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Non. That is not so. You did not sleep at all and your heart, I can see how your heart is hurting. The little girl, she is not here.”
Perrin did her best to close the topic. “Only me today. Let me show you the sketches I made for you.” She pulled them out of the portfolio and spread her drawings across the cutting table.
Melanie watched her for a long moment and then came around the table. She turned to inspect the sketches, but not before pulling up a stool so close that their hips touched. She wrapped an arm around Perrin’s waist and pulled her close as one friend would with another. In that position they went through the design in detail.
Melanie pointed out a line of the hem that she had seen Donatella Versace put on the Paris runway just last week. To avoid being labeled derivative, between them they restructured the lines.
Perrin slowly shifted beneath Melanie’s kindness and her shared passion for original fashion. The model’s casual, friendly embrace, her deep insights, and her gentle understanding did almost as much as Maria’s no-nonsense kindness. Cassidy would have worried and fussed. Jo would have been her typical quiet, steadfast, pillar-strong self at a loss as to how to help and never understanding how much being herself did just that. Melanie simply let Perrin be her own, upset self without comment or judgment.
When they were done, there was a peace between them. The design would be stunning. Not merely analogous to the opera costumes, but uniquely its own statement. Enough so that Perrin knew she’d need to dig Russell out of his cave
to make sure he was there to photograph Melanie’s arrival at the opening. Which was another thread of her life she’d have to re-tie.
And she’d have to get him to talk with Wilson Jarvis about how to turn the Emerald City Opera opening into a red carpet event that the entertainment news would cover. Yet another future payoff for Seattle and the Emerald City Opera. She had almost a dozen designs that Raquel had sold from the store that would be walking the lobby on opening night, though none were like Melanie’s showpiece.
Melanie tried to coax her to go out, to call her friends and make an afternoon of it. It was tempting, she definitely had some fences to mend there. But there was another one, far more important. And just because it was hard, she wouldn’t shy away from it this time.
Jaspar sat in his dad’s office. Getting the day off from school almost made up for having his arm in a cast. Tomorrow he’d get some good mileage out of it from classmates, even more than having sailed the big boat. ‘Course his dad had called the school and gotten all his homework assignments, so it wasn’t a totally free ride. And he couldn’t do squat downstairs with the crew with his arm in a cast.
Dad had been cool about it all. Clearly Tam had filled him in, but he hadn’t gone all parent-fake about it either. He’d made a point of settling Jaspar in the office, rather than out in the cubical he normally used for homework. And the stuff he was doing was neat once Jaspar started paying attention to it. More than once Jaspar had forgotten all about Kipling’s story of Kim’s adventures in India to listen to what his dad did to make the opera run.
When she got off school, Tam had been so afraid to come up to him that he’d given in way sooner than he planned. She sat on the couch and was all girly, offering to get him a soda, seeing if he wanted help with anything.
When Dad was out of the room he asked her quietly, “Why are you here anyway? Why aren’t you with her?” No need to explain who he was talking about, though he hadn’t meant it to come out so nasty. Tam looked miserable, right on the verge of tears for like the hundredth time since he’d been hurt.
“Dad said it was better if I didn’t,” she sniffled hard. “I checked Dad’s phone. She sent him a message saying she didn’t want me to come.”
Man the waterworks really were going. Tam was really, really sad about it. He didn’t want that.
“What was the rest of the message?”
She told him.
Jaspar had to think about it a bit. He had a funny feeling that the most important part of the message wasn’t the part that Tam cared about. Ms. Williams had said she was sorry. By itself, it might mean she was sorry that Jaspar had broken his arm, but that didn’t fit the rest of it. And it didn’t fit what a mess Dad was today, like he hadn’t slept or anything. Twice he’d seemed to forget what he was holding in his hands. When they’d gone out to lunch together, though it was embarrassing that Dad had to cut up his hamburger so that he could eat it, his dad didn’t eat much of his own.
Ms. Williams had said she was sorry and said that she would call, though not yet.
Almost every night for the last month he’d heard his dad talking with her. He couldn’t make out the words, except once or twice when he’d snuck up outside the bedroom door, but you didn’t talk that much to a girl unless you really liked her.
Dad came through the office, said something about Jerimy and the costumes. Did the kids want to go downstairs with him?
Tam, rather than leaping up as she had about costumes even before Ms. Williams first showed up, checked in with him. Jaspar tipped his head a little so she’d know he was fine with it and it was okay if she went.
She double checked, which made him even less angry at her. He did the finger flick for her to get gone, like when he was sick and she was hovering too much. She went, but Jaspar told Dad he was fine, wanted to read his book. What he really wanted to do was think.
He didn’t like that everything had changed. And he didn’t like that it had happened so fast. Tam was done with middle school next month. When did she get so old? And girl-shaped. Like he didn’t even recognize her, though he could see that boys sure did. Even grown-ups would stop to watch her go by. They used to always say, “What a cute kid.” Now it was all, “What a beautiful girl.” Like she’d changed and left him behind. And those dresses.
Jaspar squirmed around on the couch trying to get more comfortable, but his arm was hurting and it wasn’t easy.
Tam had looked even more like an adult in her costume and those dresses she kept making with Ms. Williams. She was good at it too, everyone said so. Maybe it was more than just wearing them. Even before Ms. Williams, she was mostly down with Jerimy and Patsy, like she really cared about that stuff. He’d always been able to find her there when he needed something.
It wasn’t like the electricians, or even better sailing that whole big boat with no one but Mr. Morgan paying any real attention to him. But maybe it was what she liked.
Jaspar slowly became aware that there was someone standing at the office door.
Ms. Williams.
“Dad and Tam are downstairs.”
She nodded, but didn’t move to go to them, just stood there.
“What?” Dad would harass Jaspar about such bad manners, but he wasn’t here.
“Can I come in?”
Jaspar shrugged a yes and then wished he hadn’t. His arm really hurt.
She didn’t just breeze in like she seemed to always… Oh no! She was gonna do one of those serious adult-conversation-with-the-kid things. He really didn’t want to deal with one of those right now.
She sat down on one of the chairs and faced him.
He knew he was going to be rude, could feel it building up.
“I really spoiled it, didn’t I?”
It took Jaspar a moment to figure out what she was talking about. He’d expected her to start with his arm or the book open on his lap or something safe. Even Dad usually did that, pretty much everyone except Tam did that.
“It’s not that I like Tamara better than you, I just know her better. I understand girls better than guys. Before your dad, I hadn’t met all that many guys that I liked enough to be friends with. Russell and Angelo married my best friends, but even them, it took me a long while. I’m really sorry for how I treated you, even if I didn’t mean to.”
Jaspar had to blink at her, as if she was turning into a different person without even moving.
“What I brought for you today isn’t some lame bribe to try and make it all better. It’s for the opera. Anything else, well, I just hope you’ll give me a chance to try and figure it out better than I have so far.” Then she opened the long bag she’d brought in. First she pulled out a dark cloth, elaborately sewed in the same colors as his costume.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sling for you to wear with your costume.” She spread it out on the couch beside him where Tam had been sitting. “It will cover the whole cast and just make it look like your character was wounded in sword practice or something.”
“But I don’t have sword.”
She reached into her bag again and pulled out a wooden sword complete with belt and scabbard just like the one Carlo wore as the Prince, only smaller. It had been painted to look so real he had to touch it to make sure it was wood.
“This way you can still go on stage and your character will still make sense.”
On stage. He hadn’t even thought about how that might be a problem for a kid with a cast. But she’d thought of it and figured out how to fix it.
“Thanks,” he tried to think of something more intelligent to say.
She nodded and stood up to leave.
“You gonna wait to see Dad and Tam?”
She shook her head now.
“You’re making my dad and my sister really sad.”
That stopped her in the door as if he’d just stabbed her with his new sword. He hadn’t really meant to.
Ms. Williams took a deep breath before turning to look at him, her hand brace
d on the doorframe. “I know.”
Now Jaspar got why she’d said she was sorry. Why she’d said the rest of the text.
“You know what, Ms. Williams?”
“What?” She didn’t let go of the door frame.
“It might be okay if you called Dad tonight.”
She was silent for the longest time before she nodded to him and whispered, “Thank you, Jaspar. I don’t know if I’m ready, but thanks.” And she was gone.
He was still thinking about what it all meant when his dad came back.
“Hey, nice sword. Where did that come from?”
He shrugged and ran his hand down its smooth length.
Tam came in and spotted the sling lying where Perrin had left it beside him on the couch.
“Hey, that’s cool. A sling as a part of your costume. It matches perfectly, and the sword explains your injury.”
Tam didn’t get it, not yet. It always took her a couple extra moments while she thought about and tested a new idea. She was right more often than he was, just slower to make sure of it. Maybe about Ms. Williams she’d been right and he’d been wrong.
Dad figured out where the sword and sling had come from fast enough though. He dropped into a chair as if Jaspar had just hacked his legs out from under him.
Chapter 19
Perrin skipped the Tuesday dinner to work on Melanie’s dress and the one she’d wear herself to go with it for opening night. Actually, she’d have to make three more. As the costume designer, she’d been given three tickets to opening night, and Carlo had obtained two for Melanie. So between them they’d invited Maria, Jo, and Cassidy. The men had all agreed to pitch in to help Angelo as the restaurant’s opening neared and he descended into near total panic. Maria was going to be done with pastries before the performance and would leave the service to the new pastry chef.
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