Another Claire Rowan

I pulled my hand out from under Ethan's just as the last camera flash went off. The Bellwether House ballroom had been restored to its old salt-and-pearl beauty: tall windows, cream plaster, a ceiling painted with gulls. I'd spent eleven months coaxing the place back from water damage and bad renovations. Tonight, the Vale Foundation was celebrating the reopening, and Ethan had asked me to stand beside him as his fiancée. He hadn't asked me to stand there as the architect responsible for the work. That should have bothered me more. "To Claire," said Martin Vale, Ethan's uncle and chairman of the foundation. He lifted his glass toward me. "And to the way she gave the Bellwether back its soul." The guests applauded. My cheeks warmed. I looked at Ethan, expecting him to meet my eyes. He was already watching the portrait on the wall behind me. It was a photograph in a silver frame. A young woman with my dark hair and the same narrow chin smiled into the camera. The brass card below it read: CLAIRE ROWAN 1988-2017 A LIFE THAT STILL LIGHTS THE WAY I had seen the photograph once before, in Ethan's house, and he'd told me it was an old family friend. When I had asked about the name, he had said it was an odd coincidence. There were plenty of Claire Rowans in the world, apparently. Now I heard him say, "She would have loved this." The toast quieted. Martin gave Ethan a look I couldn't read. "I think she would have," Ethan continued. "Claire always believed this house could become something more than a monument to the past. And my Claire has made that possible." A few people smiled at me. One of them said, "You must feel her presence in the work." The room seemed to hold its breath. I looked at the silver frame again. The woman's smile was faintly crooked, the way mine was when I tried not to laugh. I'd spent years working in rooms where old names stayed on the walls, but I'd never been asked to share mine with a ghost. Ethan turned toward me, as if waiting for me to help the room understand. The band began a soft instrumental behind us. He offered his arm. I stepped away from it. "Excuse me," I said. I walked through the ballroom doors and into the empty corridor. My heels clicked against the restored oak floor, each sound sharp enough to count. Behind me, applause began again. Ethan caught up near the service entrance. "Claire, wait." "Did you know about that portrait?" "I knew it was here." "Did you know her name was Claire Rowan?" He looked at me. "Yes." The answer came so easily that I felt it in my ribs. "You told me it was a coincidence." "It is a coincidence. I didn't want to make it into something." "You let me stand beside you while you told a room full of people I brought her back to life." His mouth tightened. "That's not what I said." "It's exactly what you said." "That was a figure of speech. You restored the house. You know how important it was to her." I stared at him. "I never met her." "I know." "Then how could I know what was important to her?" He glanced back toward the ballroom. I saw the movement, the instinct to return to the people waiting for him. "Can we talk at home?" he asked. I took off my engagement ring. My fingers shook once, then steadied. I didn't drop it. I placed it in his palm. "Not tonight." "Claire." "Don't ask me to comfort you about her." The words landed between us. For a moment, he didn't move. Then his fingers closed around the ring. I left through the loading entrance, past stacked chairs and a delivery cart. The night air smelled of wet stone and the ocean. My assistant, Jamie, was waiting by the curb with a folder tucked under one arm. "Are we done?" Jamie asked. I looked back at the ballroom windows. Ethan's silhouette crossed behind the glass, moving toward the portrait. "Not yet," I said. "But I am." Jamie didn't ask what I meant. He opened the car door, and I got in.