“Thank you for coming,” he says. “And for reading at the service.”
He shakes her warm, perfumed hand, trying not to stare at her unusual outfit—a shapeless blue jacket that hangs from her shoulders like a cape, and white pants so billowy, they look like a skirt.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Kyung. How are you holding up?”
“I’m all right, thanks.”
She looks at him skeptically, but doesn’t try to press the matter. “I was devastated when I heard about what happened. I mean, no one can be more devastated than you and your father, but—”
“It’s not really something we have to compare like that.”
“Yes, of course. I just meant … it was such an exciting time in her life. Before I went on vacation, we were on the phone almost every day making plans.”
“Well, she loved to redecorate.”
“Oh, we weren’t redecorating anything. She was going to come work for me.”
“Work? You mean like volunteer?”
“No. It was a full-time position, with benefits and everything.”
Kyung shakes his head. The idea of Mae having a job, a real job, doesn’t compute. “You mean you were going to hire her in exchange for an investment? My father was going to give you a loan or something?”
Elinor stiffens. Suddenly, the nervous, tongue-tied woman is gone, replaced by a visibly piqued businesswoman. “I’ve never needed a loan from anyone, not even when I first started out. I have three employees and more work than I know what to do with.” She pauses, softening a bit. “I wanted Mae to join us because she had an exceptionally good eye. You knew that about her, didn’t you? How she could track down almost anything she put her mind to? I mean, really obscure pieces that other decorators would usually give up on.”
He didn’t mean to insult Elinor, to insinuate that her intentions weren’t good when she offered Mae a job, but this is the only way he knows how to make sense of it. His mother had never worked before. She’d never expressed any interest in it either.
“I’m not sure why she didn’t tell you about this. She beat out two other women who had much more formal training. One of them even had a master’s degree in design. Every time I talked to her, it seemed like she was so excited to get started.”
“Wait…” Kyung still can’t imagine his mother going into an office every day or bringing home a check at the end of the week. He also can’t imagine his father being amenable to it. “When was this supposed to happen?”
“She was planning to start after I got back from vacation, but the day came and went, and she didn’t show up, so I kept calling and calling. It wasn’t like her to not call me back, so I drove up to the house and there were all these news crews there. Of course, it made sense after that. It was so awful, what they did to her.… I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be talking about this now.” She rummages through her bag and removes a key attached to a small plastic disk. “I’m guessing you’ll probably want to get her things at some point? I wrote the address on the key chain for you.”
“What things?”
“In the apartment…” She frowns, studying his face as if she might be speaking to the wrong person. “The apartment above my studio? She asked if she could rent it. She’d been having some things moved up there.” She looks flustered again. “Is there someone else I should be talking to about this? Your father, maybe?”
“No, no.” He takes the key from her. “I just don’t understand why she needed an apartment.”
“The drive, I suppose. I got the sense she wasn’t comfortable asking you or your father for a ride every day.”
It feels like Elinor just shoved him into a wall. His reaction must register on his face because she quickly tries to smooth things over.
“I mean, she never said that directly. But it’s a long drive from here to Connecticut. Two hours, round-trip. Four, if you had to drop her off in the morning and come back for her at the end of the day. It would have been completely impractical.”
Kyung stares at the key, trying to understand why Mae never mentioned any of this before. He remembers her talking about Elinor—endlessly, in fact. Whenever he had to drive her somewhere or drop by the house because she’d complained so bitterly that he hadn’t, Mae would go on and on about a project they were working on together. Rather than fight to change the subject, he’d simply tune her out. He wonders if Mae told him about the job while he wasn’t listening. Or maybe she didn’t bother to tell him because she knew he wouldn’t listen at all.