Chapter 7 - Wet Footprints On Marble
I felt the cold first in my shoes. Each step I took beside Mom left a wet mark on the marble, a little spreading oval that caught the light from the chandelier.
We were near the doors now. Not out. Just at the edge where the crowd had thinned enough for me to see the floor. My dress clung to my legs and dripped from the hem. I could see the trail behind us, my footprints leading back toward the center of the room where everybody still stood with their phones up.
Mom felt me slow down. Her arm was around my side, holding me hard against her navy dress. The sleeve of it was damp now where my hair had pressed into her shoulder.
“Don’t look back,” she said, quiet, just for me.
I tried not to. But I could hear the wet slap of my shoes and I couldn’t stop watching the marks I was leaving. I’d never tracked water inside like that before. At school they put up the yellow sign if the floor was slick. Here it was just me, making a mess on that shiny floor while everyone watched.
Eleanor was still by the dark wood doors. Her hand hadn’t left her chest. Her pearl necklace moved a little when she breathed. She wasn’t looking at Mom now. She was looking at the floor, at the water coming off me.
Her eyes stopped on my dress. The light blue fabric was stuck to my arms and dark in patches where it was soaked through. A drop ran off my fingertip and hit the marble.
That was when I remembered her voice from before, before I ran in here. Not loud. Low, the way she talked when she didn’t want other people to hear her being sharp.
She’d sent me out through the side hall to get something for her table. She’d said it quick, like I should already know. I’d gone because that was what I did at these things. I stayed near her chair and did what she asked so Mom wouldn’t get that tight look around her mouth.
I didn’t remember falling or spilling. I just remembered the cold hitting me all at once, and my hair going heavy, and water in my shoes, and thinking I had to get back to Mom before Eleanor saw me like that.
My throat got tight. “I was —” I started.
Mom’s fingers pressed a little deeper into my side. Not to stop me. To hold me up.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
I leaned into her. The wet of my dress bled into the side of her dress. I could feel her breathing, steady under my cheek.
“You were helping Mrs. Eleanor?” Mom asked, low enough that only I could hear it.
I nodded against her shoulder. I didn’t want to say how it happened yet. I wasn’t sure of the order of it myself, just the cold and running and everybody turning to look. The words stuck.
“Sorry,” I whispered again. My voice shook.
Mom stopped walking. Right there by the doorway, with my footprints shining behind us, she shifted so her body was between me and Eleanor. Her grip tightened around me until I couldn’t feel the cold so much as the pressure of her hand.
“Don’t,” she said. “You don’t apologize for being wet.”
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Eleanor took a small step forward. Her shoes didn’t make a sound on the marble. She glanced down once more at the puddle spreading under my feet, then up at Mom.
I felt Mom go still. She didn’t move us back. She didn’t move us forward yet. She just held me tighter, her palm flat against my ribs through the wet dress, like she was trying to warm that spot.
