The Dress Shop of Dreams

by Menna Van Praag

  “You may hate me for it,” she says, wanting to prepare them both for the worst.

  “I doubt that.”

  “Well …”

  Etta glances at Sebastian and he gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

  “Try me.”

  Suddenly Etta has the urge to talk about anything and everything else but that. She can tell him all about her life, all the things he doesn’t know, all the good and loving things she’s done. Maybe then he’ll forgive her this one sin.

  “It seems to me,” Sebastian interrupts Etta’s thoughts, “since you’re here, that you may have forgiven me for what I did to you. The thing I have never forgiven myself for. Can this be true?”

  Etta frowns. “Of course it is. But I never felt I had anything to forgive, so—I didn’t blame you. I understood. Of course I understood.”

  Sebastian releases his breath. “I feel … I feel as if you have blessed my soul.”

  Etta smiles.

  “Whatever it is,” Sebastian says, “whatever you’ve done, I will forgive you. I can promise you that.”

  “I, I …” Etta closes her eyes again. “I had a daughter,” she begins.

  Cora stares at the framed page on the wall. She last saw these equations four years ago, when she stayed up for two days straight reading the entire collection of papers that Dr. Baxter had published over the last twenty years of his illustrious career, a career that had skyrocketed on the back of his world-changing creation, the discovery for which he’d been awarded a Nobel Prize in Biochemistry. The paper describing that startling inspiration and creation had been the first he’d published in Science and the first Cora had read. It had centered around one set of chemical equations that had been replicated for the reader. Cora had stared at them in awe then and she was staring at them now.

  “Is there something wrong?” Judith interrupts Cora’s thoughts.

  Cora pulls herself away from the page with every ounce of will she has.

  “This is my father’s handwriting. These are his initials.” Cora points to a scribble at the bottom right-hand corner of the page. “My parents wrote this,” she says. “They must have been working on it before the fire.”

  “What fire?” Judith asks, sounding slightly nervous.

  “The fire they died in,” Cora says without stopping or thinking, no longer caring about concealing anything. “The fire we thought destroyed all their research.”

  “Really?” Judith says, nerves now erased by curiosity. “Gosh, I didn’t know they were famous scientists.”

  “Did you find any other papers?” Cora asks, trying hard not to get her hopes up too high.

  Judith nods.

  “You did?” Cora’s eyes are wide. “Really?” She uses all her remaining willpower to resist shaking Judith hard and demanding more information. “Do you happen to still have them?” she squeaks, with a failed attempt at nonchalance.

  “I’m not sure,” Judith says, “we may have. I don’t know if Don threw the rest of them out or not.”

  Cora suppresses a rush of panicked fury and swallows a scream. Her hands start shaking at her sides. “If he didn’t, do you know where they might be?”

  Judith considers this, brow furrowed in concentration. Cora watches, trying desperately to keep her promise not to scream.

  “Well … I suppose, if he didn’t recycle them, then they might be stashed somewhere in the mess of my office,” Judith offers. “But goodness knows where. The place is a mess, it’d take an age to find them, if we ever did.”

  Cora understands the subtext of this statement and knows that her only response should be to nod, smile, thank Judith for her time and excuse herself without any further impositions. Under any other circumstances she would. But this means too much, the stakes are too high, she will simply have to bite the bullet and be rude.

  “Could we just take a look?” Cora asks in her gentlest voice. “It’d mean an awful lot to me if we might find them.” She still can’t quite make sense of the implications of what she’s just found. Does it mean that her employer, her mentor, her hero, has stolen her parents’ work? Does it mean that he killed them for it? She can’t quite believe that. Not now, not yet. But she needs to know the truth. And, most important of all, secure her parents their rightful place in the history of great scientific discoveries.

  Judith glances at her watch. “I’m hosting the bridge club this afternoon,” she says. “I’ve still got the guacamole dip to make. My guests will be arriving in a few hours. Rita is always annoyingly early.”

  Cora flushes with embarrassment. “We could just take a few minutes, then if we don’t find them …”

  Judith sighs. “Couldn’t you come back another day?”

  You don’t understand! Cora wants to scream. I can’t wait another second, let alone another day!

  “It’s just, well, I don’t live in Oxford,” she offers instead. “I came up on the bus. I left my grandmother at home and—”

  Judith huffs again. “All right then, we’ll just take a peek.” She turns in the direction of the stairs. “Come on, be quick.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Cora says, scampering up the sixteen steps after her.

  “If you’d told me about her I would have left the church,” Sebastian says. “I never would have left you alone. Didn’t you know that?”

  Etta nods. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”

  “But, I don’t …”

  “You were meant to be a priest,” Etta says softly. “I could see that, as clearly as I could see anything. We couldn’t take you away from your greatest passion, the meaning and purpose of your life. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  Sebastian scoops up Etta’s hand and holds it between his own. “I wouldn’t have cared if I’d had you instead, and a baby, I wouldn’t have missed it—”

  Etta gazes up at Sebastian. His blue eyes are nearly gray now and misty, as if he’s looking at her through a fog. His jaw is softer but still strong. With the hand that he’s not holding Etta reaches up and cups his chin.

  “Perhaps not at first,” she says softly, “but you would have, sooner or later. When you’d been working ten years in a stuffy office, when the glow of love had become commonplace, the spark in your spirit would have gone out.”

  Sebastian shakes his head. “You both would have been more than enough.”

  “No,” Etta says, her voice firm. “I’ve seen it before. I saw it in my own father. Some men are meant for marriage, some aren’t. I couldn’t have done that to you, it wouldn’t have been right.”

  Sebastian gives a sigh of surrender. “I can’t convince you,” he says. “It’s too late now to show you how I would have loved you, but I know it’s true. And anyway, I haven’t been the priest I hoped I would be. I wanted to serve God and help humanity. Now I think I would have done a better job of it as a husband and father. I certainly would have been happier.”

  Etta, having been about to say something else, is stopped by his words. She had been so convinced of her choice, had believed so strongly that she’d saved Sebastian from a life of regret. But he sounds so certain of his feelings that now Etta wonders if she’d made the right choice after all, or if she sacrificed a lifetime of love for no reason at all.

  “Can I see her?” Sebastian asks. His voice is tentative, as if he has no right to such a thing. “Do you have a photograph? Or perhaps I might maybe meet her one day …” His voice is so cautious, yet so full of hope, that Etta feels her heart break all over again that she has to tell him such a hideous thing.

  “She died. Twenty years ago. In a fire,” Etta says, so quietly she can hardly hear herself. These facts are enough for now, she thinks. Talk of suspicious circumstances and the like can wait. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to be telling you this.”

  Etta takes her hand from between Sebastian’s, buries her face in her palms and starts to sob. Her shoulders shake.

  “It’s not your fault,” Sebastian says. “Please don’t speak o
f it anymore. I don’t want you to suffer like this.”

  “But,” Etta’s voice is muffled, “I took your daughter. You never knew her. That is my fault, that is—”

  “No.” Sebastian shakes his head. “She was never mine. She was yours and now she is God’s.”

  “But …” Etta shakes her head too, still sobbing. “But …”

  “No,” Sebastian says again. “Don’t punish yourself. You have already borne suffering far too great for me to imagine. I have found and lost a daughter in the same hour. You loved her for a lifetime. I am the one who is sorry.”

  Sebastian holds Etta, his hands just resting on her shoulders, until at last she is silent again. Then she looks up at him, into his blue-gray eyes, with the slightest smile of hope.

  “You have a granddaughter.”

  It took Judith and Cora two hours and thirty-seven minutes to find what they were looking for. Cora had been counting on the probability that once Judith started the search, unearthing old boxes and riffling through personal papers, the momentum of the mystery would pull her along until the end. Luckily for Cora, Judith’s guacamole got forgotten in her curiosity.

  What was left of her parents’ papers fills a shoebox. After tipping up the entire contents of Judith’s office (14 boxes, 29 files, 47 envelopes) that was all they found. But it was more than Cora had ever had of her parents before and she wept when Judith handed it over.

  While Cora sat on the carpet holding the papers in her lap, tears running down her cheeks, Judith made a quick exit to get on with preparing her long-overdue dip. When Cora finally wipes her eyes and descends the stairs, she stands in the doorway to the kitchen holding the burgeoning shoebox.

  “I’m sorry about the … crying.”

  Judith waves avocado-smudged fingers in Cora’s direction. “Take the box with you. And the one on the wall,” she says. “It clearly means much more to you than it does to us.”

  “Really?” Cora asks, relieved since this means she won’t now have to beg for or steal it. Either way, she hadn’t been planning on leaving the house without it. Or the box. “That’s very kind of you, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Judith says. “But please, don’t ever come back again.”

  “I won’t.” Cora nods. “I promise.”

  Gushing thank yous, Cora turns from the general mess of the chrome and marble kitchen and hurries back down the corridor to snatch the frame off the wall before the lady of the house changes her mind.

  Dylan hasn’t written another letter since his last one to Milly. Walt’s unopened fan mail piles up in boxes and drawers, pricking Dylan with guilt every time he sees them. He’ll get back to being an agony aunt to the lovelorn and lonely as soon as his own heart has healed just enough. But right now the idea of even picking up a pen makes him think of Milly. When he writes them this time, though, he won’t sign Walt’s name. He’ll be himself, though exactly who that is, he isn’t sure anymore.

  For the last few weeks, writing to Milly has defined Dylan. He’s uncovered elements about himself he never really knew, not consciously, or understood. He’d never talked much about his feelings before, certainly never told anyone he loved them (except his father, now and then, whispered in the dark as he tucks him into bed) and never really wondered what it was that made him tick.

  Milly changed all that. She wanted to know all about him and, forgetting it was really Walt she was asking about, Dylan started to look and see what he could tell her. He’d never had anyone so interested before. Other women he dated asked questions, of course, but he never really felt it was him they were interested in. They had the image of an ideal man in their heads, along with the list of attributes he should and shouldn’t have, and they only listened to see how closely he matched up to the man they wanted. But Milly seemed to want to know everything, regardless. And she opened her heart up to him in a way he’d never known before.

  The last thing Milly wrote, before Dylan ended their correspondence, was of her overwhelming desire for a child. It was then that Dylan saw—so bright and startling he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before—the line he had crossed. He’d always been aware that what he was doing wasn’t remotely right, in any moral sense, but when he realized how much Milly loved Walt, how she wanted to start a family with him, Dylan knew it was time to let go and let them get on with their life together.

  Now, as Dylan sits alone in his office surrounded by the letters of women he will never meet or miss, he only hopes that Walt will give Milly what she wants, that he will make her as happy as Dylan so dearly hopes she will be.

  Cora can’t wait two and a half hours for the next bus to Cambridge. She also can’t wait the average of 3:39 hours it’ll then take to get home. She doesn’t know if a taxi would make the trip, so she calls Henry. 14 minutes and 27 seconds later he pulls up to the curb outside Jack & Jim’s. Seeing his car through the window, Cora abandons her untouched coffee and, clutching her parents’ papers to her chest, dashes out of the café and onto the street. Henry pops open the door and Cora slides into the passenger seat.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Cora asks for the thirteenth time, purely out of politeness, praying Henry won’t suddenly rescind the offer.

  “Absolutely not,” he says, pulling off the clutch and speeding off down the street. “Anyway, I’m not letting you meet a man who might be a murderer alone. If he did kill your parents to steal their research, he’ll kill you to cover it up. Don’t doubt it for a second.”

  “Do you really think he could have done that?” Cora asks. In her apocalyptic excitement at discovering her parents’ research and the cataclysmic shock of realizing that Dr. Baxter, whom she’s admired for so long, had stolen it, she had almost forgotten what else he might have done in the process. She certainly hadn’t contemplated the possible danger to herself.

  Henry shrugs. “Why else would he cover it up?”

  “Yes,” Cora says, still unable to imagine Dr. Baxter doing such a thing. Even if he was a despicable thief. Stealing was one thing, killing quite another. And Etta had never mentioned murder.

  “I still can’t quite believe any of it. I mean … I’ve been working with him for years. He was my supervisor for my Ph.D. He …” Cora sighs. “I just don’t …”

  “Well, perhaps there’s another explanation,” Henry says. “We’ll have to confront him to find out. Tell me everything, all the facts, all the evidence you have before we challenge him with it.”

  Cora nods. “Okay, well, I suppose Dr. Baxter must have been at Oxford at the same time as my parents, probably working in the same field. These papers prove that they created the genetic formula to modify wheat seeds so that they could grow without water,” Cora explains. “It’s exactly replicated in the research paper he published before being awarded the Nobel Prize, so …”

  Henry presses the accelerator and the car speeds along Woodstock Road toward the motorway. One hour, forty-three minutes, eighteen seconds later he pulls up outside the biology department in Cambridge and follows Cora as she jumps out of the car and runs into the building.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Cora.” Dr. Baxter smiles at seeing her. “I’ve been trying to find you. I might have a lead on securing us another grant—”

  “That’s not why we’re here,” Henry interrupts. “May we come in?”

  Now that she’s standing in front of him Cora cannot summon any words. She simply stares at him, quite unable to believe that he actually did what she thinks.

  Dr. Baxter regards Henry with a frown. “Who are you?”

  Henry shows his badge. “Detective Henry Dixon, Oxfordshire police.”

  Cora studies Colin as he receives this news and is certain she sees a flicker of fear in his face. But in the next moment, as he opens his door and invites them in, it’s gone. As they step inside, Colin Baxter walks quickly across the room to stand behind his desk.

  “Cora?” he asks. “Is everything okay?”

  Henry g
lances at Cora, but she’s staring at Colin.

  “We’re here,” Henry begins, “to ask—”

  But then, snatched up by some unseen force, Cora crosses the room toward Colin, until she’s standing in front of him, separated only by his desk. Carefully, she places the box of papers in front of him.

  “Did you do it?” she asks. “Did you really do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Did you steal my parents’ research?”

  A flash of guilt passes over Dr. Baxter’s face, so fast, but Cora sees it.

  “Oh my God,” Cora whispers, “I don’t, I can’t … How could you? How could you do that?”

  Dr. Baxter stares at her, his eyes clouding with tears. “Cora, I …”

  “Did you kill them?” she asks, her voice quivering. “Did you—?”

  He stares at Cora, horrified.

  “You’re the one who profited from it,” she continues. “You’re the only—”

  “Oh, God,” he whispers. “Oh, God. Oh, God …”

  Cora stares at him, wide-eyed. She steps back, away from Dr. Baxter, toward Henry. “You did? You … you killed my parents?”

  Dr. Baxter starts to shiver, as if he’s suddenly freezing cold. He drops down into the chair behind his desk and begins to sob. “I didn’t mean to … that is, I did, at first, but as soon as the fire started I tried to stop it, I …”

  “I don’t, I can’t believe,” Cora stumbles. “But, how, why—I’ve been working for you for four years and you’ve … you’ve always been so, so—I don’t understand. I just don’t …”

  “It was an evil thing I set out to do.” Dr. Baxter speaks so softly he’s almost inaudible. “I knew your parents had made a great breakthrough. I overheard them in the lab one night. And I’d done nothing, nothing to help anyone, and I wanted it, I wanted to be a part of that.”