I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 02
The traffic from the airport into Manhattan was brutal.
Adrian didn’t turn on the radio. At red lights, he glanced at me several times, but his gaze always dropped before I could meet it.
“Your old workroom is still in the house,” he said finally. “Your mother has someone dust the dress form every month. That brass curved ruler of yours broke once, and she found an old craftsman to repair it.”
“Throw it out.”
“She couldn’t bear to.”
“That’s her choice.”
My composure seemed to sting him. After a long silence, he said, “Your grandfather wants to see you tonight. If you don’t want to go back to the house, I can make your excuses.”
“I don’t need you to do anything for me.”
The hospital’s glass façade rose before us.
Before I could get out, he picked up an insulated bag from the back seat. “Your mother can only have low-sodium liquids. This soup was made according to the nutritionist’s instructions.”
I didn’t take it.
“Have you been bringing this for her all these years?”
He didn’t answer.
My mother was asleep in her room on the nineteenth floor. The dialysis tubing snaked out from under the blanket. She was so thin she seemed to sink into the white of the pillow.
Sabine sat by the bed in a cream-colored knit dress, plucking lilies from a bouquet one by one. My mother couldn’t stand the smell of lilies. At least Sabine remembered that much.
At the sound of the door, she turned, her eyes immediately welling up.
“Clara. You’re finally back.”
She stood as if to hug me. I stepped aside and went straight to my mother’s bedside.
“What are you doing here?”
“Mom is family to me, too,” Sabine said softly. “These past six years—the dialysis, the hospital stays, the follow-ups—someone had to be here for her.”
It was true.
But she drew out each word just enough to turn it into an accusation.
I tucked the blanket around my mother’s shoulders. “I’m back now. You can go.”
Sabine bit her lip. “I know you still blame me and Adrian. But what happened back then wasn’t planned. And the baby wasn’t—”
“Leo is five now, isn’t he?”
Her voice died.
The door opened behind me.
Adrian set the insulated bag on the table. He looked at me first, then walked over to Sabine. “Your asthma just stabilized. The disinfectant in hospitals is strong. You shouldn’t stay too long.”
With practiced ease, Sabine smoothed the collar his seatbelt had creased. “You haven’t eaten all day, either. Your stomach is going to act up again.”
The dress she was wearing had the same bias-cut line I’d sketched when I was twenty-two. That drawing had never been made public. It existed only in the old Whitmore archives.
I looked at that familiar waistline and suddenly understood that for some people, taking the man was never enough.
“Out,” I said. “My mother needs to rest.”
Adrian frowned, but he still put an arm around Sabine’s shoulders and guided her out of the room.
Before the door closed, Sabine glanced back at me.
There were tears on her face.
But none in her eyes.