Thursday, November 12
At four, Jo opened the house in trousers and a shirt with the cuffs rolled up.
“I've started without you.”
“Very proud.”
“Don't be. I've made a mess.”
The back room was full of things that looked as though they had been taken out to prove they could fit somewhere else. A small traveling trunk stood open by the desk. There were cards, photographs, a table lamp with a pleated shade, three pairs of shoes. Willa recognized the lamp from dressing rooms when she was a child. It had traveled farther than most people she knew.
“Not the lamp,” she said.
“I like the lamp.”
“You live in a house. You can like it here.”
“I like it there.”
Willa put her bag on the chair and lifted the lamp. The cord had been wrapped in a neat loop, secured with a strip of fabric. Beth's work. Jo watched her examine it.
“Don't unwrap it. I won't know how to do it back.”
“I can wrap a cord.”
“Of course you can.”
She said it too quickly. Willa set the lamp down.
“Mae's coming at six,” Jo said. “She's nearby.”
“For what?”
“To talk. Eat. There are sandwiches.”
Willa looked at her.
“Not a trap. She asked.”
“I didn't say trap.”
“You looked at the sandwiches as if I was going to drop a net.”
Willa sat down. The strap of her tote caught on the chair arm and tore farther at the seam. She made an annoyed sound.
“Let me see.”
“It's fine.”
“It isn't fine. Give me.”
Jo took the bag and turned it inside out. A receipt, a pen, and one half of a cough drop fell onto the seat.
“Lovely. You've been feeding it.”
“It's a good bag.”
“It's a bag with a good history.”
Jo went to a drawer, found a sewing tin, and sat with the torn strap in her lap. Willa started to protest again, then stopped. Her mother threaded a needle on the second attempt and held the seam flat between finger and thumb.
“Put the photographs in the envelope,” she said. “The ones on the desk.”
Willa sorted through them. Jo with a microphone, Jo in a car, Jo beside people whose faces she knew but couldn't name. One of Beth at twelve, asleep on three airport seats, her head on a handbag.
“Not that one,” Willa said.
“I wasn't taking that.”
“It's with the others.”
“I took the whole box out.”
Willa put Beth's photograph face down on the desk. She didn't put it back in the box. Jo drew the needle through the bag.
“How is she?”
“I haven't talked to her today.”
“She sent me a list.”
“Of what?”
“What she won't be doing.”
“She's got a job to do.”
“I know. She's made it very clear.”
Willa slid the performance photographs into the envelope. The corners caught on the flap.
“Don't bend them,” Jo said.
“I'm not.”
“Sorry.”
The word sat awkwardly in the room. Jo kept sewing.
“I should call Simon,” she said.
“Maybe not today.”
“He cooked all that food.”
“Yes.”
“I could send—”
“Mom.”
“All right.”
Willa pressed the envelope flat with her palm. Her mother bent close to the bag, trying to see where the new thread should go through.
“It's awful,” Jo said. “I know it's awful.”
Willa looked up.
“I thought he knew. I thought everybody knew.”
“I know you did.”
“And now Beth won't answer a question without making it sound like I'm taking something.”
“She's upset.”
“I didn't say she shouldn't be upset.”
“I didn't say you did.”
They stopped. Both of them knew this part well enough to skip it. Jo pulled the thread too tight, swore softly, and loosened it with her thumbnail.
“I don't like this bag,” she said.
“Then don't fix it.”
“I'm invested.”
Willa laughed despite herself. Jo smiled at the stitches without looking up.
“That's better.”
Willa set the envelope aside and began fitting the shoes into the trunk. She put the flat ones under the garment bag. The new black shoes were still in their box from dinner. Jo saw her looking at it.
“I haven't worn them since.”
“They're shoes. You can wear them.”
“I know.”
She didn't sound as if she knew.
Willa took them out, wrapped them in a cloth bag, and put them beside the others. The box went into a stack for recycling.
“Thank you,” Jo said.
For a while they worked without saying anything. Jo tested the repair by pulling the strap with both hands. Willa found a pocket in the trunk containing a pencil stub, an unused tea bag, and a receipt so faded there was no writing left on it.
“Your archive,” she said.
“Is it valuable?”
“To somebody with a very specific hobby.”
“Put it in the box.”
“Which box?”
“The box.”
Willa looked at the three boxes.
“Good. There's no way to get that wrong.”
Jo laughed and held out the bag.
“Try.”
Willa loaded it, lifted it by the strap, and gave it a tentative swing. The seam held.
“Better than new,” Jo said.
“That's not a compliment to the manufacturer.”
“I didn't charge you.”
“Take it out of my fee.”
“Can you afford me?”
They looked at each other, both smiling now. Willa put the bag down.
“Do you do a family rate?”
“Double.”
“Finally, a rate based on experience.”
Jo laughed in the way Willa liked, quick and unprepared. She sat back with the tin on her lap.
“There's something there.”
“I'm not putting the bag in.”
“Not the bag. The family rate. Everybody thinks family should be cheaper.”
“It costs more because they know where you live.”
“And what you eat.”
“And how to make you come out.”
Jo pointed the needle at her. “Too sinister.”
“You said double.”
“Double's a joke. Come out sounds like you've boarded up the windows.”
Willa pulled a chair over.
“All right. What you eat.”
“That's good. Keep it.”
“The man who fixes my sink charges extra because he has to meet my mother.”
“Who doesn't like the sink,” Jo said.
“Who has notes on water.”
“Who remembers when water was grateful to be indoors.”
Willa laughed. “That's stupid.”
“It's very stupid.”
Jo put the needle safely in the tin and closed the lid.
“What do daughters charge?” she asked.
“For what?”
“Being daughters.”
“Mine's apparently an internship.”
“That doesn't sound right.”
“No benefits.”
“I give you benefits.”
“Name three.”
“Hair.”
“That's hereditary. You couldn't have stopped it.”
“An audience.”
Willa's smile caught for half a second.
Jo saw it. “No?”
“No, that's fair.”
“A sense of humor.”
“Workplace injury.”
They both laughed. Jo leaned forward.
“There. That's a turn.”
Willa could hear it. She took out her notebook, not opening to Beth, finding a clean page near the back.
“A child is a volunteer position,” she said.
“Terrible hours.”
“Unclear supervision.”
“Everybody in charge has been there longer and thinks that counts.”
“The mother volunteers,” Jo said. “The child has to be qualified.”
“For what?”
“I interviewed you.”
“When?”
“First night home. You cried straight through.”
“But I could hold a room.”
Jo laughed, an open, delighted sound. Willa laughed too, and put the pencil to the page before her mother could supply another answer.
“Oh, that's yours,” Jo said.
Willa read it back. Her own line came out too heavily.
“Just answer me,” Jo said.
They tried again. This time Willa didn't wait to be ready. Jo laughed with her hand pressed against the closed sewing tin.
Jo got up to look over her shoulder.
“Not that word.”
“Which?”
“Supervision. Sounds like a bank.”
“It is a bank. Everybody wants something.”
Jo laughed and put a hand briefly between Willa's shoulder blades. Willa kept writing.
Outside, a delivery truck stopped. Jo went to the window to see whether it was for her. It wasn't. She came back and began taking the sandwiches out of the refrigerator.
“Do you want the one without mustard?”
“I eat mustard now.”
“Since when?”
“Several years.”
“Well, you've been very discreet about it.”
Willa took the sandwich. The bread was cold, the filling too generous. Her mother stood on the other side of the table eating over a napkin, still thinking.
“Mothering is the only job where your best employee keeps leaving.”
“Children aren't employees.”
“That's why they don't give notice.”
Willa put her sandwich down. She could hear Beth in that, the twenty minutes on the bench, the word out. Jo watched her.
“Too soon?”
“Yes.”
Jo nodded. Willa waited for an argument. Her mother took another bite instead.
“Use the first one,” Jo said after she swallowed. “That was better anyway.”
The doorbell rang at ten to six. Mae had brought a paper bag and a bottle of wine. She came in apologizing for being early, saw the open trunk, and said she hoped they hadn't waited to eat.
“We didn't,” Jo said. “We're monsters.”
Willa closed the notebook, keeping one finger in the new page.