The Snow Angel (4 page)

And brides-to-be weren’t the only ones who were happy that Eden Custom Tailoring was a dark, nondescript structure on a quiet corner in Everton. As I gripped the handle of the back door and cast a furtive glance over my shoulder to make sure that no one was watching my entrance, I silently blessed Max for forgoing a bright, public building with views of our historic downtown. If he had opted for accessibility and pizzazz, I would never have been able to say yes to his harried call for help.

Satisfied that the shadowy alley behind Eden Custom Tailoring was empty, I quickly opened the steel door and slipped inside. The back room hadn’t changed much in the twelve years since I quit working for Max and Elena. It was still filled with boxes from exotic locales all over the world, and hanging from metal rods along two walls of the small space were dozens of hangers draped with fabrics in every shade and hue. A muted breath escaped my lips and I resisted the urge to take the nearest length of organza in my fingers. But rather than risk spoiling the fabric with the oils on my palm, I ran the back of my wrist against the lovely cloth and marveled at the way it felt like water against my skin.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

Max was standing in the doorway between the back room and the workshop, his crest of snowy hair almost touching the top of the frame. In spite of his height, he seemed diminished to me, smaller somehow since the last time I saw him up close. “I don’t know what to do with her fabric now that she’s gone …” he said, trailing off almost apologetically.

I thought I could hold myself together, but at the sight of him I was undone. A sob cut loose from my throat, and before I could contain it there was a torrent of tears to match.

“Oh, Rachel.” Max held out his hands to me and I came to him, careful not to bowl him over in my desperation to feel his arms around me. He tucked me close carefully. Wordlessly. There was nothing we could say.

“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed after several minutes, my face pressed against his shoulder.

“For what?”

“For not coming sooner. I wanted to go to Elena’s funeral,” I gasped, horrified that I had let them put her in the ground without saying good-bye. I tried to explain, more for my own sake than his: “Cyrus had a work thing and—”

“It’s okay,” Max said.

But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t even close to being okay. “I should have been there.”

“You’re here now.”

You’re here now. His words seemed to echo through the empty space that Elena’s death had hewn in my soul. But maybe the fissure had happened long before that. Maybe it began with Bev, and was deepened by the silence of my cowardly father. Maybe Cyrus carved it further still, creating a cavern that resounded with accusations, allegations that piled up against me: You’re weak. You’re ugly. You’re stupid and unlovable and worthless.

Maybe Bev was right all those years ago and Cyrus’s
continuation of her hurtful monologue was perfectly befitting for someone as cheap and useless as me. Maybe I was all the things they said I was. But standing in the warm circle of Max’s arms, I was something else, too.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m here now.”

It was a start.

October 1

L
ily appeared in the back room at Eden Custom Tailoring precisely at three-thirty, wearing a grin she tried hard to conceal and carrying a perfect red maple leaf between her thumb and forefinger. “Wow,” she breathed, taking in the swaths of bolted cloth and the fresh, clean scent of the place.

“Don’t touch anything,” I said. I buried my nose in the mug of coffee I was drinking and squeezed my tired eyes shut. “If you’d like I can give you some scraps later and teach you how to do a running stitch.”

“Really?” Lily sounded ecstatic at the thought.

“Sure, honey. You’ll just have to leave it here. We can’t risk taking any fabric home.” After a long, peaceful day in Max’s shop, those words seemed almost ridiculous to me. I shook my head to clear it. “How was your day?”

Lily drooped her shoulders and let her backpack slide to the floor. She kicked it into an empty corner of the narrow room, never once taking her eyes off the bolts of fabric that hung all around her and hemmed her in. “Fine,” she said absently. “Oh.” She looked at the leaf in her hand, remembering. “I found this for you. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

I took the stem of the leaf between my fingers and twirled it in front of my face. The five spires were precisely serrated, each tiny tip sharp as if it had been die-cut with a brand new press. Best of all, the leaf was entirely uniform, the same deep, cardinal color from the firm spire of the stem to the delicate, papery edges. “It’s beautiful.” I smiled, loving my daughter for her ability to find treasure all around her.

From the time she was old enough to toddle, Lily was always bringing me things: first dandelions that had been mashed in her chubby fist, then prickly pinecones and rocks shot through with quartz. I thought she’d grow out of it, but she had an eye for hidden things, and the gems she uncovered now were truly unique. I had her little gifts secreted all over the house. Flowers preserved between the
pages of my favorite books, iridescent snail shells scattered in my jewelry box, round stones as smooth and polished as marbles in the pockets of my coat where I could slip my hand inside and touch them. Each offering seemed like a little piece of Lily.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Where’s Mr. Wever?”

“In the workroom. I was taking a break. Waiting for you.”

Lily glanced at the watch on her wrist. “We’ve got to be home in one hour. You’d better get back to work!”

“Just one hour? You sound like my Fairy Godmother. When the clock strikes four-thirty …”

Lily laughed. “I guess that makes you Cinderella.”

“Hardly.” I winked at her and downed the dregs of my coffee. “Grab your books. Max and I have cleared off a space for you to do your homework.”

“Homework?” Lily crinkled up her nose. “I want to help.”

“Homework first. That’s our routine at home and we have to stick to it.”

Lily pursed her lips like she was going to argue, but my warning look was enough to stop her protestations. She sighed and lifted a stack of textbooks from her bag, then followed me through the doorway into the spacious workroom.

At the sound of our footsteps, Max looked up from the table where he was hemming a pair of men’s pants out of pewter-colored wool. While Elena had slowly worked on her unique wedding dresses, over the years Max continued to create men’s suits that rivaled Armani. In fact, he had made such a name for himself that a chain of three specialty shops in New York, Chicago, and LA had commissioned him to create a custom line. Not only were Eden suits in great demand, they were a mark of prestige and good taste.

Something lodged in my throat at the sight of him bowed over the work that had earned this simple man a name in places he had never even thought to visit. His humility, his lack of pretension in spite of all he had accomplished amazed me. I swallowed, managed to say: “Max, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Lily.”

He straightened up slowly and readjusted the bifocals that had slid precariously close to the tip of his hooked nose. Though his stature and high, Dutch cheekbones made him seem intimidating, the moment Max smiled, the room was filled with warmth.

“So this is our girl,” he said softly. And then he came around the table and took Lily’s shoulders in his massive hands so he could study her sweet face.

I expected Lily to pull back, but instead she grinned at Max and gave him a quick, uncharacteristic hug around
the middle. “Mom says you were kind of like her dad, so I guess that makes you kind of like my grandpa.”

Guilt stabbed through me at the implications of her words: It wasn’t fair that Lily had grown up without a grandfather in her life. But how could I have possibly remedied that? Cyrus’s dad died when Lily was only two, and I hadn’t spoken to my own father in years.

My father. Just the thought of him was enough to fill me with regret. Although our relationship had deteriorated by the time Cyrus entered my life, I was ashamed that I had allowed my husband to sever the final ties that held me to my dad. But what choice did I have? My father wasn’t the only one I lost when I married Cyrus Price.

“You already have a grandfather,” Max told Lily seriously. He gave me an indecipherable look. “Your grandpa was a hard worker and a good man. He always tried to provide for his family—”

“It’s complicated,” I interrupted briskly. Though I had spent my teenage years considering Max and Elena my family, they never let me forget that I had a father. A living, breathing dad of my own who just happened to be so caught up in his own life that he didn’t have any time to acknowledge the fact that he had a daughter. A living, breathing daughter who needed a daddy. “I haven’t seen my dad in years,” I said breezily, even though I almost choked on the words. I haven’t seen my dad in years …
and it broke my heart in so many pieces I wondered if it would ever be whole again.

“That’s a terrible shame.” Max frowned. The reproach in his voice made me cringe.

If Lily noticed the tension in the room, it didn’t seem to faze her. “Well, Mr. Wever, it’s nice to meet you all the same.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said, turning back to her with a smile. “And I’d love to be one of your grandfathers. You can never have too many grandpas, can you?”

Lily shook her head, grinning at the bear of a man before her. “I just wish I would have known you when I was a kid.”

“You are a kid!” He laughed. “A peanut! A little goose.”

I fumbled for words as I watched Lily and Max. The sight of them together made me realize just how lonely I was. How isolated and bitter my life had become. It took my breath away to see my daughter so light and happy, to realize that she needed a man in her life—the sort of man that her father couldn’t be. “I’m sorry,” I finally said, anguished by all the years that we had lost. All the years that Max and Elena could have been a part of our lives. “I should have—”

“Nonsense,” Max broke in firmly. “Should is a terrible word.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Life is a journey, Rachel. As you walk along the road you can either look back or you can look ahead.” He stretched a single, crooked finger right past Lily’s nose, and pointed to some faraway future that I couldn’t begin to envision.

Lily squinted, following the line of Max’s finger as if she couldn’t wait to see what was in store. “Look ahead?” she guessed.

“You’ve got it, honey.” Max gave her a wide smile. “Always look for the very next step.”

Ten suits. Two months. Twenty thousand dollars. Those were the figures that Max presented to me when he called. I was so taken by the sound of his voice after all the years between us that I was rendered speechless—though he probably assumed I was experiencing sticker shock at the current price tag of just one of his suits.

“I hate to ask you, Rachel,” Max had all but whispered. Cyrus was gone for the day, but there was a certain hushed quality to our conversation all the same. “It’s just that it’s too late to back out of this contract. I’ve already made the shipments to LA and Chicago, but the New York store is expecting my completed order by Christmas.”

Hearing Max speak was like rewinding the clock, going back to a time in my life when things were simpler. Safer. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of his breathing on the telephone line, and forgot to respond at all.

“It usually takes me two weeks to finish a suit. I’ll never get them done on my own,” Max continued. Then, softer: “Her heart attack was so unexpected. How could we have known? Elena was always so healthy. But now …” he trailed off. “What am I going to do, Rachel?”

“I’ll help you,” I said. Instantly I regretted it. How could I help him? Cyrus would never let me. But just as quickly as I rejected the idea, I embraced it again. “I’ll help you,” I forced myself to repeat. “At least, I’ll try. If I can find a way to come, I’ll be at your shop on Monday.”

“Thank you,” Max said.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t promised anything. Besides, I haven’t touched a needle in over a decade.”

“It’s like riding a bike,” he assured me, his words light with hope. “I still remember the first time you tried a stitch. You were a natural.”

But there was no way Max could remember the first time I picked up a sewing needle. He wasn’t there.