THE FITTING
898 Words
Vanessa came back three days later.
She was alone again, but different this time. Quieter. Her smile didn't reach her eyes. She kept looking at me like she was trying to solve a puzzle she'd just realized existed.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"I didn't tell him."
I paused, my hand on the dress rack. "Tell him what?"
"About you. About us. About any of it." She sat down in the fitting chair, her hands folded in her lap. "I wanted to. I picked up the phone a dozen times. But every time I started to say it, I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because I knew what would happen." She looked up at me. "He'd lie. Or he'd explain. Or he'd make me feel crazy for even asking. And I didn't want to give him the chance."
I pulled Vanessa's dress from the rack. The ivory silk caught the light, soft and luminous.
"You're smarter than I was," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't ask questions either. I signed the contract and told myself it was enough. That I didn't need to know who he really was." I hung the dress on the fitting room door. "I was wrong."
Vanessa stood up. Walked to the dress. Touched the fabric like she was afraid it might burn her.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"It is."
"Did you know? When you designed it? Did you know who I was?"
I met her eyes in the mirror.
"Yes," I said. "I knew."
---
The fitting was quiet.
Vanessa stepped into the dress. I fastened the buttons, adjusted the hem, pinned the places where the silk needed to pull tighter or loosen more. My hands were steady. My face was neutral. But my heart was pounding in a way it hadn't pounded since I'd signed that marriage contract five years ago.
"Tell me about your mother," Vanessa said.
I kept my eyes on the hem. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything. I never... I never asked. I never wanted to know. And now I feel like I've been walking around with half a story my whole life."
I thought about my mother. Her hands, always moving, always sewing. The way she'd hummed while she worked, old Shanghai songs I'd never learned the words to. The night she died, and the phone that didn't ring.
"Her name was Li Na," I said. "She came to America when she was twenty-two. She didn't speak English. She didn't know anyone. She worked twelve hours a day in a garment factory so she could save enough money to open her own shop."
"That's incredible."
"She was incredible." I pinned a fold of silk. "She met my father at a party. He was married to your mother already. She didn't know until it was too late."
Vanessa's face went pale. "I didn't"
"You didn't know. I know." I stepped back, looking at my work. "He left her when I was seven. Never looked back. Never paid child support. Never acknowledged I existed."
"And your mother?"
"She sewed. She worked. She raised me alone." I picked up my measuring tape. "She died when I was twenty-four. Cancer. By the time they found it, it was already too late."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
Vanessa was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "Is that why you married him? Daniel? Because you needed money for her treatment?"
I stopped.
The measuring tape hung from my hands.
"Yes," I said.
"Oh, Maya." Vanessa's voice broke. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
Because if I answered, I would cry. And I had spent five years not crying. I had spent five years building walls so high that no one could reach me. I was not going to break in front of my half-sister, in my own studio, while she wore a dress I'd designed for her wedding to my husband.
"Turn left," I said. "I need to check the side seam."
---
Vanessa left an hour later.
She hugged me at the door, not the air-kiss nonsense she'd tried at our first meeting. I stood stiff in her arms, not hugging back, not pulling away.
"Thank you," she said.
"For the dress?"
"For telling me the truth." She pulled back, her eyes red. "I know I don't deserve it. I know I pretended you didn't exist. But I want to... I want to try. To be better."
"Then try," I said. "Don't tell me. Show me."
She nodded. Wiped her eyes. Walked out into the September afternoon.
Lena appeared beside me.
"Well," she said. "That was unexpected."
"What was?"
"Her. Crying. Hugging you. Being human." Lena crossed her arms. "She's not what I expected."
"Me neither."
"Does that change anything?"
I watched Vanessa's car pull away from the curb. Watched it disappear around the corner.
"No," I said. "Daniel still married me. He still abandoned me. He still forgot I existed. And now he's planning to marry my sister without ever telling her the truth."
"Vanessa knows the truth now."
"Vanessa knows my truth. She doesn't know his." I turned away from the window. "And until she does, nothing changes."
Lena was quiet for a moment.
"Be careful," she said finally. "You're starting to sound like the people who hurt you."
I didn't answer.
Because she was right.
And I didn't know how to stop.
- Writer
