The faithful maid came to the library door, her expression dark. “Horatia, you might as well tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Corina said. “Mama?”
Mama pursed her lips, exchanging glances with Ida Mae. “I made over your room.”
“You what?”
“I needed a project, so I turned your room into a quiet room.”
“A quiet room? This whole place is a morgue.” Corina’s voice carried, and her words were sharper than she’d intended. “How can you possibly want quiet?”
Mama didn’t respond but sat in her chair, staring out the window toward the garden.
Corina knelt next to her. “Mama, I’m sorry, but why my room? We have a ton of spare rooms to make over.”
“Yours was across from Carlos’s.” What little light lived in Mama’s eyes shone when she said his name. “I don’t want to argue with you. Ida Mae can take you to your things.”
“Mama.” Corina squeezed Mama’s thin arm, fearing she was losing more of her every day. “For the life of me, I—”
“You know what your problem is, Corina?” Mama said, chin resting in her fingers, her gaze cold and vacant. “You don’t know when to give up. When to realize life has you beat.”
“I’m thirty, Mama. You had Carlos and me by my age. I can’t believe that life defeated me at twenty-five. What would I do with myself otherwise?” She’d hung around, trying to draw Mama out, get her to live again. “Mama, don’t give up. You have so much to live for yet.”
“I lost my son, Corina. And for what? A war that our government made sure we could never win. Killed in a firefight? What does that even mean?” Shaking, Mama pressed her hand to her forehead. It was as if the news of Carlos’s death had just arrived. “My baby . . .”
“You’re not alone, Mama. I lost my brother, my twin.” Corina ached to draw Mama into a hug, but she would only shrug her off.
“But yet, look at you, moving to Florida, attending movie premiers.”
“I couldn’t sit around here another day, Mama. Five years, just existing and not living. You know darn well Carlos would hate it.”
“We don’t know what he would think or want, do we? Because he’s not here.” Mama shot to her feet and paced to the window, the southern light accenting her dark hair and narrow frame so she appeared angelic. “By the way, the Diamatia is not here.”
“Not here?” Something in Mama’s tone carved a dark pit in Corina’s belly. “Where is it then?”
“I donated it,” Mama said, brushing her hand up and down her arm as if she were chilled.
“Youdonatedit?” A ticklish heat flashed over Corina and flared her temper. She thudded toward Mama, taking hold of her arm. “To whom? When? And might I ask, why?”
“We no longer had need of it.”
“We? No longer . . . hadneedof . . . it? Who’s we, Mama? It wasmygown.” Anger fueled Corina’s tears, but they were too hot, too thick to slip down her cheeks.
“Which I purchased for you.” Mama turned from the window, hands on her hips. “By hunting down the most elusive, exclusive designer in the world.”
“So you have the right to give it away? You moved heaven and earth to convince Luciano to design a gown for me. How did you suddenly feel the need to give it away?”
“Livy Rothschild was auctioning items for charity at Christie’s and she wondered if I had any items to sell.”
“Livy Rothschild? She just suddenly called up and said, ‘Hello, Horatia, got stuff to sell? How about that Diamatia?’ ”
“Don’t be smart. She called to see how I fared. She’s been one of my true friends through this ordeal.”
Corina fisted her hands, pressing them over her eyes. Livy was a fair-weather friend like the rest of them. Grief made her uncomfortable and she avoided it like a ten-dollar skirt from Walmart. Corina could remember only a handful of short calls from the aristocratic Bostonian after the funeral.
“What about me, Mama? Huh? I stayed here with you. Gave up my career, my social life. Most of my friends are married, starting families. But I stayed with you and Daddy.” Corina demanded an answer with her posture and tone. “So why would you even think to give away my dress?”
“Do not badger me. It’s done.”
