Eleanor set down the bakery box. "Thank you for having me."
Agnes looked at her steadily. "Sit."
They sat. Agnes poured. The tea was strong and hot. For a moment neither of them spoke, and Eleanor understood that Agnes was waiting — not unkindly, but firmly — for Eleanor to say why she had come.
"I wanted to meet you properly," Eleanor said. "Not the way I came before. I came before as — I don't know what I was. A woman looking for something. I wasn't looking at you."
"You were looking at Emily's mother," Agnes said.
"Yes." Eleanor looked down at her teacup. "And I think — I hope — I can see more clearly now. I wanted to say that to you directly."
Agnes studied her. "You've had a hard year, Mrs. Whitmore. I've read the papers."
"Eleanor, please."
"Eleanor." Agnes set down her cup. "I'm seventy-four years old. I buried my husband thirty-one years ago and my only son eleven years after that. When they brought me a six-month-old girl from Saint Mary's — a baby nobody claimed — I told the director I'd take her for the weekend. She stayed for twenty-three years." Her voice did not waver. It had the steadiness of something said many times, to herself, in the dark. "I am not sorry I loved her. I won't apologize for it."
"I would never ask you to." Eleanor meant it. She felt it as a physical thing, a loosening. "Agnes — she's Emily. She told me herself. She is not Grace, and I have accepted that. I don't want to take anything from you. I only want — " She stopped. What did she want? She had rehearsed this on the drive over and every version had sounded like a demand. "I only want to know her," Eleanor said. "In whatever way she'll allow."
Agnes was quiet for a long time. The kettle ticked as it cooled. Somewhere upstairs, a clock chimed the half hour.
"You know what she was like at four?" Agnes said. "She lined up her shoes every night before bed — straight, toes together, like little soldiers. I asked her why once and she said, 'So they'll be ready.'" A smile moved across Agnes's face, brief and private. "At nine she decided she was going to be a chef. Burned a tray of biscuits black as coal and served them to me anyway. I ate two."
Eleanor laughed, and it came up out of someplace she hadn't visited in a long time.
"She still lines things up," Eleanor said. "At the restaurant. The silverware. I've watched her." She paused. "I shouldn't have said that. It sounds like spying."
"It sounds like a mother watching," Agnes said, and the word landed between them without apology.
They drank their tea. Agnes cut the lemon cake and served it on small plates, and they ate it without ceremony. They talked about ordinary things — the price of heating oil, the geraniums, which Agnes defended fiercely against the coming frost. Eleanor found herself telling Agnes about the apartment above the bakery, the small kitchen, the mornings that smelled of bread. Agnes nodded as if this were exactly the sort of thing worth knowing.
When Eleanor stood to leave, Agnes walked her to the door. At the threshold, Eleanor turned.
"She's lucky," Eleanor said. "Emily. That it was you."
Agnes's eyes were bright, but her voice was steady. "She's lucky twice over," she said. "That's a rare thing. Don't waste it."
Eleanor nodded and walked down the swept steps to her car, and in the rearview mirror she saw Agnes in the doorway, one hand on the frame, watching until Eleanor turned the corner.
* * *
Emily heard about the visit three days later, over the phone, in the alley behind the restaurant kitchen while Sofia waited with her cigarette. Agnes's voice was dry as ever: "She brought lemon cake. Good cake. We got on."
"Did you?" Emily asked.
"Well enough. She's not what the papers made her out to be."
Emily leaned against the brick wall and looked up at the narrow strip of sky. "Are you okay with it, Ma? Her coming around?"
A pause. Then: "She's not taking anything from me, love. She couldn't if she tried." Agnes's voice softened, just slightly. "You were mine from the first weekend. Nothing changes that. But she's got a right to her portion. I can spare it."
Emily closed her eyes. "I love you."
"I know. Now get back to work before Laurent docks your pay."
Emily hung up and stood there a moment longer, the phone warm in her hand, the smoke curling up into the cold air. Then she went back inside, tied her apron, and lined up the silverware — straight, toes together, ready.
Chapter 19: What Remains