Beth came home on Saturday with a bag of washing she claimed was mostly towels.
“Mostly?” Iris asked.
“The important portion.”
Her daughter stood in the hallway, twenty-seven and suddenly eight again, looking around at a house that was beginning to detach itself from her. The photograph of her at graduation remained on the little table. Beside it sat a folder from the estate agents and a list of jobs to do before they took pictures.
Beth read the top line.
“Paint the back door?”
“Apparently it’s an unwelcoming color.”
“It’s been that color forever.”
“Yes. We may have been discouraging people for years.”
Beth smiled, then set her bag down and put her arms around Iris.
They stood like that longer than they usually did.
“I brought you the button samples,” Iris said when she could speak without making it sound like a different sentence.
“You didn’t have to bring them home.”
“I wanted them somewhere the vacuum cleaners couldn’t fall on them.”
“There’s a story there.”
“Several.”
They had lunch in the kitchen. Beth made toast, a procedure involving three separate checks and a sarcastic remark about a machine older than she was. Iris cut apples and put cheese on a plate. For half an hour they talked about ordinary things while the washing machine turned Beth’s mostly towels into a more credible claim.
Then Beth asked whether Iris had somewhere to go after the house sold.
“Not yet.”
“You could come to Boston.”
“I could. I don’t want to.”
“Right.”
“Not because you’re there.”
“I didn’t think—”
“I like Wrenford. My friends are here. There may be work I want to do.”
“The sewing place.”
“Yes.”
Beth looked at her. “You used to talk about that when I was little.”
“I did.”
“I thought you stopped wanting it.”
“So did I.”
The words settled between them. Beth turned a slice of apple over in her fingers.
“Do you wish you’d done it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Instead of—”
“No.” Iris reached across the table, not to take her daughter’s hand but to lay her own where Beth could see it. “Not instead of you.”
“I know. I didn’t mean that.”
“There were other choices. I made some, and some I let happen. You’re not responsible for either kind.”
Beth nodded, still looking at the apple.
“Dad asked me to have lunch with him and Valerie tomorrow.”
Iris felt her face become very still.
“Oh.”
“I said I wanted to see him on his own. He said he’d thought we could all meet here. Like we used to.”
For one short, absurd moment Iris pictured herself slicing tomatoes while Colin explained where everybody should sit. Then the image lost its power to surprise her.
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“He said he was going to.”
“I’ll speak to him.”
“You don’t have to do it because of me.”
“I won’t.”
Beth put the apple down.
“Thank you.”
Later, while Beth took a shower, Iris called Colin.
He answered cheerfully, then became careful when he heard her voice.
“Beth mentioned your lunch idea,” she said.
“Yes. I was going to talk to you.”
“I won’t host it. And I’m not ready to have lunch with Valerie.”
“I only thought—”
“I know. My answer’s no.”
A pause.
“All right,” he said.
She waited, expecting a more elaborate explanation of why her answer ought to be different. None came.
“I’ll see Beth on my own,” he said. “Perhaps the cafe by the library.”
“That sounds good.”
Afterward she stood with the phone in her hand, surprised by the brevity. The difficult part had been before the call. The conversation itself had taken less time than making toast.
Daniel came at three to collect the fixture list he’d left at the store. Iris had offered to bring it home because she was leaving earlier. This had been a transparent excuse to see him, which she suspected he understood.
She had told Beth he was coming. Now her daughter stood beside the table sorting button cards into piles by decade with the grave concentration of a curator avoiding something personal.
The bell rang.
“Do I look normal?” Iris asked before she could stop herself.
Beth looked up.
“More or less.”
“Wonderful.”
She opened the door. Daniel stood on the step with rain in his hair and a carton of strawberries.
“The man at the farm stand was persuasive,” he said.
“Was he?”
“I bought more than I can eat.”
“I doubt that.”
He smiled, then saw Beth in the kitchen doorway and straightened slightly.
“I didn’t realize—”
“I told you.” Iris touched his arm. “Saturday. Beth’s visiting.”
“So you did.”
The small uncertainty pleased her more than flawless composure would have. She made the introductions, and Daniel shook Beth’s hand as if he were meeting another adult rather than applying for permission.
Then he saw the button cards.
“Are those the ones for the workshop?”
Beth’s face lit. “Yes. We’re doing a section on materials people used before plastics.”
“There’s a box upstairs with some old fabric samples. I can ask whether they’re available too.”
Iris looked at him. He caught her eye, smiled faintly and added, “Ask. Not promise.”
Beth looked between them, then down at the buttons with a private expression Iris recognized from years of trying to hide amusement at her parents.
They ate strawberries in the kitchen. Daniel asked Beth about her work and listened to the answer. She asked him how he knew what things were worth.
“Research. Condition. What similar things have sold for.”
“And if nobody’s sold anything similar?”
“Then I become more cautious in my adjectives.”
Beth laughed. Iris watched them while she dried the strawberries, feeling the peculiar tenderness of two parts of her life discovering that neither required her to translate.
Daniel stayed forty minutes. When he stood, Beth began gathering cups with an expression of exaggerated purpose.
“I’ll wash these.”
“Dishwasher,” Iris said.
“Yes. A complicated procedure. Could take several minutes.”
Daniel’s mouth twitched.
At the door, Iris handed him the fixture list.
“Your excuse,” she said.
“I was worried I’d have to leave without it.”
She smiled. He looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen, then back at her.
“I like her.”
“So do I.”
“I hope that wasn’t awkward.”
“A little. Not disastrously.”
“Good.”
She kissed him before he could decide whether to. A brief kiss, warm and uncomplicated. His hand touched her waist, then let go.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“I’d like that.”
Beth was still at the sink when Iris came back.
“So,” her daughter said.
“Yes.”
“He seems nice.”
“He is. Sometimes annoyingly particular.”
“You like particular.”
“I may be reconsidering the extent.”
Beth smiled, then turned the tap off.
“Is it strange if I’m glad for you and sad about Dad?”
“No,” Iris said.
“Because I am.”
“So am I. Both.”
Beth nodded, looking at the wet cup in her hands.
They put the dishes away together. There was no need to decide which feeling would win.
That evening, after her daughter went out to meet an old school friend, Iris opened the photographs of the upstairs room. She looked at the tree, the sloping floor, the space beside the window where a machine might go.
Then she opened an empty document and began a list of the customers who had asked her for work since the closure announcement.
Philip Mercer. Mrs. Hallet, sleeve adjustment. Priya’s sister, trousers. Two women from the library she could contact only if Winnie agreed to pass on her details.
Not enough to fill a week. More than nobody.
She wrote a draft appointment card. No grand claims. Her name, the work she could do, a phone number she would set up for the purpose. The address remained blank.
For the first time, the blank looked temporary.