Chapter 6: Sienna Comes Alone
Francis Doyle had a measured voice and a habit of repeating the last phrase of whatever you said before responding, which in other circumstances might have been irritating but today felt like being handed a handhold on a steep surface.
He said the words *fraudulent misrepresentation* and *unauthorized use of signature* and *actionable civil claim* in a tone that was almost gentle.
He said he would need copies of the original commission documents from Atelier Fontaine, the venue contract from Ashcombe Glasshouse, and any written correspondence relating to the bookings.
He said: "Miss Hale, do not confront anyone about the release document before we have spoken again."
I said I understood.
That was Tuesday.
On Thursday evening, Sienna came to my apartment alone.
I saw her through the intercom.
She was standing in the building entrance in ordinary clothes — jeans, a grey coat, no make-up.
She looked younger without it.
She looked, briefly, like the girl who used to sleep in the other twin bed and steal my library books and call for our mother in the night after bad dreams.
I let her up.
She came in and stood near the door.
She didn't try to hug me.
"I'm not here with Mom," she said.
"She doesn't know I came."
"All right."
"I'm not here to defend what happened." She looked around the apartment — at the embroidery frame still on the table near the window, the last section of lily-of-the-valley only half-finished.
Her eyes stayed on it a moment.
"I just needed to say some things.
To you.
Not through her."
"Say them," I said.
"I've been in love with Graham for four years," she said.
"Before you were together.
I never said anything because he was yours and I was—" She stopped.
"I thought it would pass.
It didn't."
"That's not what I'm angry about," I said.
She looked at me.
"You could have come to me," I said.
"Four years ago.
Last year.
Any day of those four months.
You could have knocked on this door and said: Juliet, I have to tell you something terrible.
And it would have been terrible.
But it would have been honest." I looked at her steadily.
"Instead you let me embroider four hundred hours of lily-of-the-valley onto a dress that was never going to be mine."
Sienna's eyes went bright.
"I know," she said.
"Did you tell Graham to come clean?"
She didn't answer immediately.
"I asked him to."
"What did he say?"
Her silence answered that too.
"He said it wasn't the right time," she said finally.
"He kept saying it wasn't the right time.
And then Mom got involved and everything moved so fast and I—" She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth for a moment.
"I told myself you'd be okay.
That you're always okay.
That Juliet is always the one who's okay."
The embroidery frame sat on the table between us, needle still threaded.
"I'm not always okay, Sienna," I said.
"I just don't make you watch."
She cried then.
Properly.
The way she used to cry when she was small, with her whole face.
I did not go to her.
I sat in my chair and I let her cry because I did not have comfort to give, and giving false comfort would have been its own kind of lie.
When she was done, she wiped her face with the sleeve of her grey coat.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I said.
Which was not entirely true, but was true enough.
"Jules.
The dress.
If you want it—"
"It's already arranged," I said.
"Margot is holding it.
I'll collect it this week."
Sienna nodded.
She moved toward the door.
Her hand rested on the handle for a moment.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," she said.
"Not yet.
I just needed you to know that I know what I did." She paused.
"And I need you to know that Graham signed something last week.
That I didn't know about until yesterday."
I went very still.
"What did he sign?" I said.
She opened the door.
May you like
"Ask Margot," she said.
And she left.
