“Well…” Florence winced, one hand going to the side of her swollen belly. Without being asked, Vivian fetched a stool from the corner so Florence could prop her feet up. “That’s the first thing you’ve got to figure out, then. Some people deserve that kind of love from you. Others don’t. Sometimes hard things bring you together, and sometimes they push you apart. And sometimes it’s no one’s fault which it ends up being. It’s just the way life goes.” Still rubbing her belly with one hand,she stretched sideways to retrieve the mending basket from the floor. “Any chance of you telling me who we’re talking about?”
Vivian was silent, biting her lower lip as she looked away from her sister’s probing gaze. Her eyes fell on the basket, and before she knew it, she was laughing. “Oh hell,” she gasped. “I just remembered. I didn’t tell Miss Ethel I wouldn’t be at work today.”
She felt tears pricking against the back of her eyelids once more as she hiccupped her way through her giggles. Florence, who had been threading her needle, set her things down. She levered herself out of the chair once more and went to sit on the bed. “Hand,” she ordered, holding out her own.
Vivian, unsure what was about to happen, took it, only hesitating a little. Florence frowned for a moment, as though she were listening to something no one else could hear.
“There,” she murmured, and placed the palm of Vivian’s hand against her belly.
The movement caught Vivian off guard, and she nearly snatched her hand back from the series of fluttering kicks. “Flo,” she said, staring at her sister. “That’s the baby.”
It felt like a stupid thing to say, but her sister only smiled in response. “Sure is.”
“Holy moly,” Vivian muttered, staring wide-eyed at her hand as the kicks disappeared for a moment, then resumed in a sudden flurry. “Does it hurt?”
Florence laughed. “I wouldn’t say it’s comfortable,” she admitted. “But I don’t mind. Taking care of someone who needs you isn’t always a comfortable thing.”
The kicks disappeared. “That felt a little pointed,” Vivian said, giving her sister a wry look.
Florence’s smile didn’t waver. “It was.” She patted the bed next to her. “Come here.”
Vivian hesitated only a moment before sliding in next to her sister.Their legs stretched toward the footboard, feet tangled up with each other, and Florence eased her arm under Vivian’s shoulders, guiding her sister’s head to her shoulder.
They didn’t say anything. At last, Vivian rolled over, curling into a ball as she pressed her face against her sister’s side, and cried.
Florence didn’t let go.
She had to go eventually. Florence needed to rest, and Vivian wanted to try to keep her job, since she’d still need to pay rent and all the rest of it. But she took her time about leaving, packing away the mending and making sure Florence was settled.
“Flo…” Vivian paused in the doorway. Her curiosity got the best of her, as it always did. “It wasn’t Danny who did something unforgivable, was it?” She hesitated, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer. “It was me.”
Florence, already lying in bed, smiled without opening her eyes. “Time for you to get to work, Vivi. I’ll see you tomorrow.” More softly, she added, “I’m so, so glad I get to say that.”
Vivian swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Me too,” she whispered. “God, me too.”
It took Miss Ethel a full thirty minutes to get through her lecture on how girls who wanted to keep their jobs should learn to use a telephone, even when they had emergencies in their family. At last, though, she sighed and grudgingly admitted that, since she did have customers waiting on deliveries, Vivian could at least work that day.
“But we’ll see what happens tomorrow!” she snapped as she shoved three boxes across the counter. “I’ve got my eye on you.”
She made it through two deliveries before she saw the address on the final box; when she did, her heart plummeted into her stomach. It was another delivery for Mrs. Morris.
Vivian’s hands trembled as she knocked on the door. What if that same maid—what had her name been?—answered? What if the Morrises were on the lookout for a thief and suddenly remembered, when Mrs. Morris saw her again, that she had been there that day?
No, that wouldn’t happen, Vivian reassured herself as the housekeeper—not the maid, thank God—led her upstairs. Mr. Morris couldn’t have told his wife, or anyone, that his erotic letter from another woman had gone missing. She didn’t need to—
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, coming in here like this.”
The gruff, angry voice made Vivian jump, tense and alert as a feral alley cat who had just smelled a strange dog in her territory. The housekeeper sighed. “He always forgets to close the door,” she murmured. “This way, please.”
The shout hadn’t been directed at her. But Vivian’s heart was still racing as the housekeeper led her past the open door of what she could guess was Mr. Morris’s office. He was pacing across the room, his face an angry purple. A woman sat calmly across from him.
“Perhaps you would like to close the door before we continue our discussion?” the woman asked.
Vivian stumbled over her own feet even as the door slammed shut. She knew that voice.
Mrs. Morris was in her sitting room again, alone this time. “Did I hear Mr. Morris shouting?” she grumbled to the housekeeper.
“Another meeting, ma’am,” the housekeeper said, going to draw the curtains and adjust the tilt of the mirror in the corner. “He’s closed the door now, I believe.”
