Chapter 8: The Day He Came to the Door
Graham came to my flat on Thursday morning.
I knew he would.
He had called seven times since Sunday night.
He had sent four messages, each one progressively less confident than the last.
The first said we need to talk calmly.
The second said I owe you an explanation.
The third said please just give me a chance.
The fourth said Juliet I'm handling this badly I know that.
He rang the bell at quarter past nine.
I opened the door.
He looked like a man who had not slept well.
His jacket was pressed but his eyes were tired and he was holding himself with the particular stiffness of someone who had rehearsed what they were going to say and was now not entirely sure it was the right speech.
"Juliet," he said.
"Please.
Ten minutes."
I stepped back and let him in.
He came into the living room.
He didn't sit.
He stood near the window with his hands in his pockets.
I sat in the chair across the room and waited.
"I made a terrible mistake," he said.
"Multiple mistakes.
I know that."
"Okay," I said.
"The email.
The account.
I shouldn't have done any of that.
I wasn't thinking clearly.
I was trying to — I was trying to manage the logistics without having the conversation first, and I made decisions I should never have made."
"You used my email address to impersonate me," I said.
"To my venue."
"I know."
"That has a legal name, Graham."
He exhaled.
"I know.
Patricia Vane's office made that very clear."
"Good."
He moved slightly.
Not sitting.
Still standing, but shifting, like he was trying to find a different angle on the room.
"I want to fix this," he said.
"I'll return every penny from the account.
The florist — I'll have that reversed.
The venue, the gown — I won't contest any of it.
You keep everything."
"I know I keep everything," I said.
"It's mine."
"Yes." He looked at his hands.
"I just meant — I'm not going to fight you on any of it."
"That's wise," I said.
"Given that you'd lose."
He was quiet.
"Is there anything—" He stopped.
Started again.
"I didn't fall out of love with you, Juliet.
That's not exactly — it wasn't a loss of love.
It was more that Sienna and I—"
"Graham," I said.
"Don't."
"I just want you to understand—"
"You want me to understand in a way that makes you feel better.
I don't owe you that." I looked at him steadily.
"You can explain it to yourself, or to Sienna, or to anyone you like.
You don't need to explain it to me."
His jaw worked.
"My mother told me she met you," he said.
"Yes."
"She's — I wish she had stayed out of it."
"I know you do."
"She doesn't have the full picture."
"She has the picture you showed her for thirty years," I said.
"That's quite a lot of picture."
Something shifted in his expression then.
The rehearsed version began to fall away.
What was underneath it was not guilt, exactly.
It was the particular frustration of a man who had expected to manage this and found instead that it could not be managed.
"What is it you want?" he said.
"From all of this.
What do you actually want?"
"Accountability," I said.
"A documented record.
And for you to stop trying to turn this into something we both just quietly move past."
"And after that?"
"After that I don't think about you anymore."
He stood there.
The room was very quiet.
Outside I could hear a car going past, a bird somewhere, the ordinary sounds of a Thursday morning.
"We were happy," he said.
"For a while.
We really were."
"I know," I said.
And it was true.
It cost me something to say it, but it was true.
"I'm sorry, Juliet.
I am genuinely sorry."
"I believe you," I said.
"It doesn't change anything.
But I believe you."
He picked up his jacket from where he had set it over the arm of the sofa.
He moved toward the door.
He stopped once, hand on the frame.
"The gown," he said.
"I knew you were making something remarkable.
I just — I didn't understand in time what it meant."
I said nothing.
There was nothing to say to that.
He left.
I listened to the front door close behind him.
I stayed in my chair.
Then I picked up my phone and called Cora.
"He came," I said.
"What did he do?"
"He apologized.
He said he'd reverse everything.
He tried to explain."
"Did you let him?"
"Some of it."
"How do you feel?"
I thought about it honestly.
"Like something's finished," I said.
"Not fixed.
But finished."
"That's enough for now," Cora said.
"Yes," I said.
"I think it is."
I set my phone down.
On my workroom table across the hall, the gown was hanging in its long cotton cover.
It had not been touched.
It had not been transferred or altered or taken.
It was still exactly what I had made it.
I had not yet decided what came next for it.
That was a question for later.
For now it was enough that it was there.
May you like
That it was mine.
That four hundred hours of work and love and grief and Nana Rose's favorite flower were still exactly where I had put them.
