“A brunch was an outstanding idea. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“Oh.” She let out a long breath. But the relief gave way to confusion. He wasn’t going to sayanything? Did he not hear the way she’d treated their oldest family friend? “Is that it?”
“I meant what I said in my speech. Everything.”
“Even now?”
He chuckled. “Of course.”
“You don’t think I acted out of line at all… maybe to Mrs. Pawloski?”
“Oh, Emma, it was your birthday. She’s a grown woman.”
“But—”
“Who does like her alcohol.” He gave her a knowing wink.
Emma forced a weak grin and took a sip of coffee. So hehadheard what she’d said. And somehow he still saw his perfect little girl.
“I think I should maybe go see her,” Emma mumbled under her breath.
“Whatever you need, darling,” he said, turning his attention back to his paper.
She took her coffee and her phone and wandered upstairs to the living room. There weren’t any lights on, but she barely noticed as she curled up on one of the armchairs flanking the fireplace. The watery morning light muted the colors in the room; the deep mahogany of the piano looked gray. The spines along the bookcase were dull.
Her eyes wandered to the wall above the sofa. There was a large black-and-white framed print there, one of the original architectural plans for the Chrysler Building that her father had gotten from Sotheby’s a few years ago. It was lovely, but she couldn’t help remembering what had been there before, vibrant and bright and bold: Pierre Bonnard’sFlowers on a Red Carpet.
A sharp pain of sadness hit her chest so quickly she almost lost her breath. She missed her mom. She didn’t even have any memories to miss, but she missed the paintings that she had hung to make this house a home. She missed feeling her mom around every corner, knowing that she was there even though she wasn’t.Would she have called Emma out for being so selfish and rude? Or would she have overlooked it the same way her father had? She hated the fact that she would never know.
Her phone began to ring in her lap, and she saw Margo’s face on the screen.
“Hey!” Margo exclaimed. “I can’t talk long, we’re heading to a doctor’s appointment, but Emma, that party was perfect! Did you go out afterward?”
Emma knew she meant with Montgomery.
“No, I was tired and called it an early night.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. But seriously, the whole thing was such a success. Ben and I were just saying!” Then her sister’s voice became muffled. “I’m asking her if she had a nice time. Give me a second… Okay, I’ll tell her. Ben wants me to tell you that everyone had fun.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Emma replied, walking into her room and sitting on the edge of her bed. “I was so rude to Mrs. Pawloski.”
“Oh, stop. You were just joking.”
So her sister had heard her comment too.
“But joke or not, I—”
“Just got to the doctor’s. Call me later, okay?”
And then the line went dead.
Emma stared down at her phone’s darkened screen. This was insane. While she loathed the way Knightley confronted her, even she had to agree with him on some level. She was in the wrong. So why was he the only one calling her out on it?
This was one transgression even her family couldn’t gloss over. She would have to fix it herself.
Wrapping a scarf around her neck and grabbing a light bomber jacket, Emma headed down 83rd Street to Mrs. Pawloski’sbrownstone a few doors away. It had been nearly as nice as the Woodhouse home when Emma was a child. Mrs. Pawloski and her husband had owned the entire three-story structure back then, and Emma had vague memories of a shiny black Rolls Royce always parked out front, elaborate decorations for every holiday cascading down the front steps. But that gleam had worn off now. The lush garden window boxes were gone, the black paint around each windowsill peeling.
Mrs. Pawloski was forced to sell almost everything after her husband died. She hadn’t been aware of the millions of dollars of debt until his funeral, and even after she divided up the house into apartments, it hadn’t been enough. Now she lived in the small one-bedroom apartment on the garden floor. Emma vaguely knew the details, but Mrs. Pawloski also never let on just how bad things were, so she had never bothered to ask.
