Chapter 8: The Offer She Made By The Fireplace
The fireplace wasn't lit that afternoon but I stood by it anyway because the mantel was warm from the sun coming through the curtains. Mom had told me to wait in the dining room while she finished the laundry and not to touch anything. I wasn't touching. I was just looking at the dark vases on the mantel and trying not to listen to the quiet house.
That was when Selene came in from the hallway. She'd changed out of her gown into a cream sweater and dark pants, her hair still in that low bun, her clutch gone. She had a small shopping bag in one hand, tissue paper sticking out the top. She smiled when she saw me there alone, and I felt that same hopeful pull I'd felt the night before at the doorway, even though I knew better.
"There you are," she said softly. She set the bag on the polished table and came closer, her heels quiet on the rug. "I was hoping I'd find you without everyone hovering."
I didn't move. My hands were clasped behind my back the way Mom taught me when I was nervous.
She reached into the bag and pulled out a dress. It was white with little blue flowers, new, with the tag still folded inside the collar. And a small boxed doll with blonde hair. She held them out toward me.
"I got these for you," she said. "For being such a brave girl last night. I know I sounded sharp at dinner. I didn't mean it the way it sounded."
I looked at the dress but didn't take it. My breath caught a little and I had to swallow.
"You can sit at that table anytime you want, Lily," she went on, her voice dropping like we were sharing a secret. "Any chair you want. Mr. Balanki and I both want that. But we need to forget that silly talk about cards and locked rooms, okay? Grown-up things get confused. If anyone asks you about what you saw, you just say you didn't see anything. Then everything stays nice. You can have the dress and we can be friends. Isn't that better?"
My eyes went wide before I could stop them. For a second I wanted to say yes so badly it hurt, to take the dress and have her like me. Then my chest tightened and I felt my gaze drop to the rug. I understood what she was offering wasn't a gift. It was a trade. My stomach knotted the way it did before a spelling test when I knew the answer but was scared to say it out loud.
Selene must have seen the change on my face. Her smile stayed but it thinned. She folded the dress over her arm and kept talking, more to herself now, rehearsing.
"At the gala tomorrow, people will ask how I got access to the foundation dressing suite," she said, smoothing the tissue paper like she was practicing in a mirror. "And I'll tell them Mr. Balanki gave me his donor card because I'm family now. That's all it was. He trusts me with his private things. That's what family means. You understand family, don't you, sweetheart?"
She said it like she wanted me to repeat it back. I didn't. I kept my hands behind my back and my lips pressed together. My eyes burned but I didn't cry.
She leaned a little closer and her voice got even softer. "You're a smart girl. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
I heard Mom's shoes on the hardwood before I saw her. She came through the doorway from the kitchen hall, her apron still on, her hands damp. She stopped when she saw us by the fireplace, Selene holding the dress out, me backed against the mantel.
Her eyes took in the shopping bag, the doll box, the way Selene was standing over me. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't make a scene.
"Lily, come help me fold," she said evenly.
I moved right away, stepping around Selene to get to her. Mom's hand found my shoulder and pulled me in close against her side. She didn't look at the dress.
"Thank you, ma'am," Mom said to Selene, polite and flat. "She has plenty of clothes."
Selene straightened up, tucking the dress back into the bag with a little jerk. Her mouth was tight again, that pressed-lip look from the night before. She looked at me tucked under Mom's arm, then at Mom's hand holding me.
"I was just trying to be kind," Selene said.
May you like
"I know," Mom said. She turned me gently toward the doorway. "Let's go, baby."
We walked out together and I didn't look back. I could feel Selene watching us from by the fireplace, still standing by those dark vases, holding her bag of things I hadn't taken. In the hallway, Mom's hand was shaking a little where it held my shoulder, and I knew she'd seen exactly what I'd seen — that Selene wasn't going to stop, and that saying no had just made me something she needed to get rid of before the gala.
