A Place at the Table

Clara packed three of Mia's dresses before she realized she didn't know where they would go.

She sat on the edge of the bed, holding a small cardigan. The cottage was the nicest place they had lived since Mia was born. There was a bathroom window, a patch of grass, a kitchen floor that didn't buckle beside the sink.

She had earned the right to stay here. Yesterday that had seemed uncomplicated.

Now she couldn't picture pushing a mop past Lorenzo while knowing his brother had been her father.

Mia appeared in the doorway wearing one sock.

"Are we going on vacation?"

"I'm thinking."

"About vacation?"

"About where we should live."

Mia climbed onto the bed and inspected the open suitcase.

"My rabbit goes."

"Of course your rabbit goes."

"And Rosa?"

"Rosa lives here."

"And Mr. Grumpy?"

Clara put down the cardigan.

"You like him very much."

Mia shrugged. "He came down."

To her, perhaps, that settled the matter. An adult had listened when she asked him to be smaller. Clara wished the rest of it could be that simple.

Someone knocked.

Lorenzo stood outside holding a paper bag. He wore a dark shirt and no jacket. The sight of him on her narrow doorstep still made her straighten automatically.

"Rosa said you hadn't eaten."

"She could have sent breakfast."

"She did."

He lifted the bag.

Mia pushed around Clara's legs.

"I have one sock."

"I can see that."

"The other one is hiding."

Lorenzo looked past them at the suitcase.

His expression tightened, but he didn't comment until Mia ran off to investigate beneath the sofa.

"Do you want to leave?"

Clara folded her arms.

"I don't know."

He nodded once.

"If you do, the cottage remains yours while you find somewhere else. Your wages won't stop because you need time."

"You can't pay me to be your niece."

"I was proposing paid leave."

She looked away.

"I'm sorry."

"You're allowed to misunderstand me. I've provided some precedent."

That almost won a smile.

He placed the bag on the kitchen counter. Inside were warm rolls, eggs in a covered container, and a small packet of jam.

"The east suite would give Mia more space," he said. "There's a connecting room. Adella could have it ready—"

"No."

He stopped.

Clara looked around her little kitchen. She had chosen the curtains. The bright drawing stuck to the refrigerator was Mia's version of a duck, although Rosa maintained it was a lemon.

"This is our home. You don't get to discover we're related and move us like furniture."

"I wasn't trying to."

"You were already deciding which rooms we'd sleep in."

He looked toward the suitcase again.

"Yes," he admitted.

The admission took some of the anger out of her.

Mia returned carrying a sock and a wooden spoon.

"Found it."

"Why do you have a spoon?" Clara asked.

"It was with the sock."

Lorenzo pulled out a chair.

"Should I ask?"

"I wouldn't," Clara said.

They ate at the small kitchen table. Lorenzo's knees almost touched its underside, and Mia immediately informed him that he had chosen her rabbit's chair.

He moved one place over.

Clara watched him spread jam with the concentration of a man handling a complicated agreement.

"There's something we need to explain," she told Mia.

Her daughter paused with both cheeks full.

"You can finish chewing first."

It took a while.

Then Clara said, "We've found out that Mr. Lorenzo is part of our family. He's my uncle."

Mia looked from one adult to the other.

"Like the picture book?"

"Yes. Like the families in your book."

"Does he know?"

Lorenzo lowered his roll.

"I was present for the discussion."

"But do you know how?"

Clara bit the inside of her cheek.

For once, Lorenzo seemed to understand the real question.

"I'm learning."

Mia accepted this, then offered him a piece of her egg.

"You can have this."

"Thank you."

"I don't like that bit."

He ate it anyway.

After breakfast, while Mia dressed her rabbit in the missing sock, Clara carried the plates to the sink.

"I don't want you to make promises because you feel guilty," she said.

Lorenzo stood beside the table, too large for the cottage and somehow less intimidating in it.

"Then I'll make fewer of them."

She turned.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't know what Julian would have wanted to say. I don't know why your mother didn't tell you. But I can tell you what's in this house, and I can stop keeping parts of it closed because I don't want to look."

He reached into his pocket and placed an old brass key on the table.

"The carriage house holds his things. Paintings, mostly. My father put them there after Mother died. I've never gone through all of them."

Clara dried her hands.

"You'd open them?"

"If you want to."

She looked at the suitcase through the bedroom doorway.

Then she put the key in her pocket.

"Tomorrow," she said. "I want today with Mia."

Lorenzo nodded and picked up the empty breakfast bag.

At the door he hesitated.

"For what it's worth, you were welcome here before I knew."

Clara looked at him.

He glanced toward Mia, who was arguing with the rabbit about appropriate footwear.

"Both of you."

After he left, Clara went into the bedroom and took the three dresses out of the suitcase.