The Strings That Hold Us Together

by Kendra Mase

  Turning the block, her eyes met a pair of very scuffed black dress shoes sitting on the shop’s stoop. Katherine followed the legs attached to them all the way up to their familiar face. He looked good in a suit. His tie wasn’t clipped down, just hanging there, swaying away from his crisp gray button-down.

  Jack’s expression looked about as pained as she felt.

  The skin on her forehead creased together, causing a new line of rain to trail down the side of her face. “Were you…”

  Was he at the funeral? Katherine couldn’t remember seeing him there, though it seemed like a stupid question in her mind now, seeing him there in front of her. In a suit. Staring at her.

  He gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod.

  “Kit, I—”

  “Don’t. Please.” Katherine clenched a hand over her chest. She felt a snag in the beats.

  “I need to talk to you,” Jack forced on anyway. “What I said—”

  It didn’t matter. None of it. Not him or her or the shop that she signed the papers for this morning to say that it now legally belonged to her mattered anymore. At least not right now.

  Katherine tried to look away, but it was as if she knew that his hand would flinch. He would try to reach out and bring her eyes in line with him only a few inches higher than her own. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “You’re right. I need a whole damn soliloquy.”

  How poetic. Katherine blinked slowly before taking another step closer to Jack. Around him. She dug for her keys.

  “Please.”

  Finding the cold silver edge of her keys, she let the grooves dig into her palm. “You lied. This whole time, you lied to me. Why would I want to talk to a liar?”

  Jack looked pained. “That’s fair.”

  She hated that expression. Of course, it was fair. It was the truth.

  “Let’s go inside. Or hell, let’s get out of here and go to Keys. Get some tea,” Jack began to ramble on about not knowing what to do and warm drinks. “You look like you’re freezing. Just, let’s talk.”

  “I have to go,” Katherine said, though she had nowhere to go at all. Two steps up. A flight to the apartment. A few more to the bed. Go home. Alone.

  Rest, they told her.

  Jack’s eyes flicked toward the upstairs window. The rain began to beat on his shoulders. He only nodded. “Yeah, I do too. Good night, Kit.”

  Good night, Jack.

  Katherine opened the door and used all her strength to shut and lock it behind her.

  By the time she got up the stairs and locked the second door leading to the shop behind her, Katherine’s hands shook. She snatched her phone up from where it was sitting beside the bed. Left there, after she couldn’t handle hitting decline every time Jack attempted to call. Now, Katherine pressed the hot plastic frame of the phone harder against her ear. The same ringing voice of her father’s voice mail answered that she had reached the current owner of the number. Hitting the end call, she was too irritated to listen.

  She hit redial again and again.

  “Don’t you care?” she screamed into the voice mail on her eighth—no, ninth try. “Don’t you care that your sister is dead, you ass?”

  The shop was closed, and the days passed by slowly.

  They were running out of tea. Katherine’s blood was filled with sugar and her eyes caked in purple smudges as she continued to work.

  She wasn’t sure how many rounds of hot water fermented tea leaves sat nearly untouched in Emilie’s faded mugs over the past week after she made them, taken a sip, and left them to rot.

  Katherine nudged the mug to check for dust, though found it only rested on top of thin waxy sugar cake wrappers before she answered the door.

  “I don’t usually do house calls anymore,” said the man who entered wearing a loose suit.

  Slightly graying around the sides, his hands gently gripped a laptop and binder in his hands. Katherine focused on them, unable to look anyone in the eye, but especially him. The lawyer. He would know she was a hack—that she did this.

  “But Emilie was a friend to me once.”

  So it seemed that’s what a lot of people said. The shop phone had been going off for days with condolences, and Katherine had given up on answering. The city was Emilie’s home, Emilie’s family.

  Katherine left them that way.

  “Thank you for coming,” Katherine replied, guiding him inside to the table. The living space was still a mess of her things. She didn’t feel right sleeping in Emilie’s bed just yet. “How does this work?”

  “Well, I go over her will that she left. We’ll sign some paperwork and then I will get out of your hair.”

  Katherine nodded. She could do that.

  “All right then. Let’s get started. According to the will of Emilie Passin Walker…”

  All the words blended together. Everything went to Kit just as she said. Sign on the dotted line and she owned a house. A store. Even Emilie’s name, currently attached to it, was hers somehow.

  “Is that it?”

  “And there is one more person in her will.”

  Katherine looked up at the man, adjusting his narrow glasses. “Who?”

  “A Jack Carver.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jack realized he didn’t want to live without Kit when he kneeled at the grave. It felt too formal though, he could just imagine Emilie whacking him on the back and laughing at him, so he adjusted until he sat in front of the fresh stone, legs crossed.

  She wanted to be cremated so no one would touch her body, but still be buried in the earth where no one could take her.

  She liked to cause a fuss.

  “Hey, Emilie.” He looked around, feeling a little silly, but he went on. “I was at your funeral, though I stood in the back. I was too much of a coward even then to face your niece—not that she noticed I was there.”

  The entire time at the funeral, it was a small affair, but still, many who knew her came. Nik from DuCain, the girls from Rosin, others around town who knew her by name or reputation. And Kit, her family, was there, clutching the ashes and nodding as people came to pay their respects.

  She did not smile.

  She did not cry.

  She did not waver.

  Jack wavered. Jack bit his cheek as he waited in the short line and bowed out before anyone even moved. He couldn’t stand looking at her like that. He couldn’t bear that he had caused her pain.

  They should’ve told her sooner. They should’ve told her the moment he realized that she had feelings—that he couldn’t see a day without her somewhere in it, even for a second. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was just supposed to make sure she was taken care of and wasn’t hurt.

  And what did he do?

  “Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?” Jack asked, feeling silly as he looked around. “I know you’d say yes if you were here, but you aren’t, and we really fucked up, Em. I really fucked up.”

  All the things he yelled at her as she screamed in grief.

  He tugged at the roots of his hair as his jaw clenched.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  When she made it back inside the chilled first floor of the shop, instead of turning to her left where the workroom was, where the tea hid for special necessary occasions, Katherine wandered toward the other wall. Standing before the phone, she let the plastic shake one more time before reaching out, snatching it and its high-pitched noise away.

  She pressed the phone tight to her ear and murmured a hello instead of asking who the hell kept calling. Her voice sounded hazy, unused to speaking to anyone but the kettle who screeched back too loudly.

  The phone was starting to mock her too.

  “Thank goodness, I have been trying to get a hold of someone for days.”

  “I’m sorry.” Katherine held the phone with two hands. How silly a landline was. So much harder not to pick up. “The shop has been closed for th
e past few weeks due to…”

  A death.

  The owner’s death.

  “A change in management.” How stupid that phrase sounded. Katherine shook her head, though the woman on the other side of the line clearly could not see it, nor how Katherine let her head fall back toward the ceiling. Maybe she shouldn’t have answered.

  A few witch’s globes made of hand-blown glass to capture bad energy hung from the supporting beam. How had she never noticed them before? Greens and pinks twinkled in the swaths of light, cutting through the windowpanes.

  “Is that why the website looks all shiny and new?” the woman asked. “I was just curious about when the order I placed would be shipped. It didn’t really say anything, and it’s a holiday gift.”

  “Right.” Katherine hesitated, feeling her forehead wrinkle before she understood what the woman was asking. “Of course.”

  Website?

  “Where did you order, again?”

  “On your shop’s website,” the woman repeated. This time, slowly.

  “Would you just hold for a moment?” Looking around, Katherine found the laptop beneath the register she left there. Hitting the power button, time passed in years, centuries once the internet loaded and she found the link sitting in her email.

  EMS Lingerie, in stark swirling script, lit up the screen. A single star was positioned right above, between the M and S.

  Em’s.

  All the photos were there. Her photos. A face soft and unaware that her stretch marks and curves were also everywhere on the internet in Chantilly lace and night-sky satin stared back at her with something she could only classify as unabashed vibrance.

  Katherine’s eyes stretched wide.

  She looked beautiful.

  He had done it. Hadn’t he? Jack had done this.

  Switching back to the other tab, she saw the email there. Jack’s email was the one that sent her the link. And under it was a single line.

  I warned you. You can change the name if you like, but I think it has a nice ring to it.

  “No effing way,” Katherine murmured under her breath.

  “I’m sorry.” A small chuckle came from inside her ear. “What was that?”

  “Right. I am sorry again.” Katherine came up with some sort of excuse for swearing at a customer. She blinked, feeling one of her first tears in days slide down her cheek. She flicked the sudden emotion away quickly, clearing her voice. “Like you said, new website and all.”

  “It seems it is working out for you. I saw a few postings online and thought the pieces were absolutely gorgeous. I figured I had to jump on and get my order in quickly before it was too late.”

  Quite a few of the listings said only two words beneath the items. Sold Out.

  Katherine’s eyes widened at the words. “Thank you for bringing the orders to my attention. I will get your order out to you as soon as the mailman comes around. Gift wrapped and everything.”

  “Thank you so much.” She could hear the woman smiling through the phone. “I am sure my niece will love it.”

  “Thank you,” Katherine replied. She hit the end call button and hung the phone back up without looking. Her eyes couldn’t be torn away from the computer screen as she scrolled.

  She couldn’t believe it. Everything she had imagined, drawn up, and set to work with her limited coding knowledge, was in front of her. Better than she had ever imagined.

  Bringing the laptop filled with a spreadsheet of unfilled orders with her to where the tea was hidden, she flicked the light on in the workroom.

  Grabbing supplies from each cabinet in the silence, her eyes caught on the old record player. Passing by the light switch, she ran her hand over the edge of the mint green plastic. Gently, as if touching an old artifact that had never been seen before, she dropped the pin on the record and the room filled with the fulfilling hum of The Beatles in strawberry fields.

  Letting her hips sway side to side, Katherine let her body dance to the slow strange beat until she was rolling up ribbon and lace into their respective drawers across the drafting table. Sweeping through the shop, she set to cleaning the entire place as the rest of the record played. When it stopped, she flipped through the box for another and set the needle back down to play again.

  She had a lot of orders to catch up on.

  Leaning over her worktable, Katherine ran scissors through the length of sky-blue fabric, ignoring the incessant pounding at the door. Facing the other direction, Katherine didn’t know if they could see her, but turned around anyway to look at the dull unlit shop before her. It was bustling with color again with all the orders she’d stayed up over the last week making, they were spread out to be tagged and packaged before being sent out in the morning. Everything was exactly how Emilie had left it. Only no one was there.

  A knock came again.

  A dirty-blond boy stood at the sparkling front door.

  Katherine paused, frozen in the middle of the shop. She almost expected another one of Emilie’s old friends to be at the door, checking in on her, or even her own father, finally showing up to do some good in his life, but it wasn’t.

  She clutched her warm, fluff-lined robe she hadn’t taken off for the past few days closer to her chest.

  For a long second, Katherine only stared at Jack’s younger brother.

  Jace’s golden eyes widened in a wince for whatever was about to come. It was obvious, if not by her appearance, by her lack of greeting that Katherine had no well wishes to speak of. But maybe it was the fact that he showed up. Here. In Ashton. At her shop, that made her pause in stagnant shock.

  Or maybe for the fact he at least had the decency to be ready to beg from where he was, kneeling before the entrance on his knees.

  Katherine raised her eyebrows at the sight.

  Jace’s mouth twisted to the side. A withering smile bloomed and something harsh caught in Katherine’s chest at it.

  That smile.

  With her bare foot, Katherine shoved his shoulder back. He had to catch himself before he went toppling down the wide steps. He caught himself just in time, hand covered in hard pebbles. He turned back to look at her again, as if he wasn’t quite sure anymore that he arrived at the correct address.

  All he could see at this one was cold rage—easily sparked whenever she dared to think about him or Jack or what her life was weeks ago, before it was all taken away from her.

  “Kit—”

  “What do you think you’re doing here?”

  Jace’s mouth hung open. He hoped the right explanation would buzz into his mouth. When it didn’t come, he stood and brushed off his knees. “I didn’t—I don’t know, okay?”

  Katherine closed her eyes. Shook her head. Behind his form, she noticed a stuffed backpack lying on the step.

  Her eyes flicked back to his guilty grin.

  Please say he didn’t do what she thought he did.

  “I just got here, and I realized I had no clue what to do next. I don’t even know my goddamn brother’s address to go begging on his doorstep first.” As Jace spoke, one word at a time, Jace picked at the ridges around his fingers. Some of his cuticles were already raw with color.

  Katherine put a hand to her head. Oh, why yes, he did do exactly what she thought he did.

  “I didn’t know where to go,” he stammered. “So, yeah, here I am, I guess, begging on his girlfriend’s front… is this considered a stoop or storefront? I didn’t know you owned the place. Pretty impressive.”

  “It’s recently acquired,” Katherine replied without emotion. “I am not his girlfriend.”

  She was never his anything. Not really.

  Jace, for once, hesitated, raising one eyebrow. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Katherine reached for the door. Maybe if she shut and opened it again, he would be gone. Maybe this was all a terrible stress-induced anxiety dream.

  “Please!” Jace stretched out a hand. If Katherine was an ounce crueler, she could have let the creaky wood door sla
m on his fingers. Instead, she caught it just as he gasped. “Wait.”

  “Please,” he repeated. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Looking Jace up and down again, his body looked as leached as his coat did, dripping from the rain. He must’ve walked through the storm that morning to get there. He almost looked as rough as Katherine did.

  He had nowhere else to go.

  She felt her own shoulders slide down her back with a sigh.

  “Fine.”

  “Yeah?” A glimmer of hope startled his expression.

  “Yeah.” Before Katherine could question herself, she slammed the door closed and turned back into the shop before heading upstairs. Carver boys, always getting in the way of her work. “Wait there.”

  Clothes felt strange on Katherine’s skin. After spending the past weeks in varying states of dress and cleanliness, perhaps that was a good thing. Change. Even the air felt different outside than it did flowing through the cracked windows inside the house.

  She tucked the hem of her sweater into her long skirt.

  “Where are we going?” Jace asked, hiking his backpack up a little farther on his back. With how full it was, fabric pulled away from his body until it looked like a shell. “So you live, like, in the shop? Nice skirt, by the way, you headed to the prairie anytime soon?”

  She pretended she didn’t hear any of the questions, especially the last one.

  “It’s loud here, huh?”

  Did Katherine ever sound like that? She honestly didn’t think she did. She sure hoped that she didn’t. Jace went on and on, filling up the silence until his voice turned to a long hum in Katherine’s ears. She held the door open for him once they reached their destination, swinging her arm until he finally went into Keys before her. Inside the café was decorated in green and red lights.