Page 38 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘It will risk everything!’her father shouted.
Left right.
‘If people suspect or your man confesses, it will ruin my name.My career.’
Left right.
‘It happens all the time.I have no choice.You saw her, she needs to see the surgeon.’
‘She needs a house she can manage, not all these stairs.’
Florence released her mother so she could push ahead down the hallway.Mama hovered behind her, humming off key with worry.In the doorway to the office, Florence leant against the doorframe to steady herself.Cool air swirled across the floor, unheated as the furnace sat cold.Between the desks, her father and Johannes were squaring off against one another.Johannes towered over the older man, but Father stood tall and determined, full of fire.He raised his hand and shook it into the narrow space between them.
‘This competition is too important.One well-publicised victory can lead to a steady stream of private clients, steady work from other companies, and no more bowing to the system.’
‘We could work together.She learnt at your side, and she’s brilliant.’
‘Stop talking at me like I don’t know!But this city will not accept a woman, especially one who climbs stairs like a child and can’t pin her own hair.You are living in a dream.They will lambast her, criticise her, scrutinise her every decision as proof that she can’t handle the work.She doesn’t deserve that.’
‘She needs—’
‘She will—’
‘Did either of you think to askmewhat I want?’
Their shouts collapsed.They turned in unison like some lopsided mirror, their matching expressions of anger dissipating into shock.Johannes pressed his palm to his chest, over his heart.‘You’re awake.’As he spoke, his face morphed into a smile so pure and lit with love she could scarce believe it was for her.
‘Why are you shout—’
‘I am trying to convince your father not to bribe our way to winning.I have a plan.’Johannes reached her in two strides.He gathered her hands into his own.‘I’m going to take care of you.I will build us a house on the vacant block on Honeysuckle Street.It will all be on one level.No stairs.We’ll work together as Hempel Architects.’
‘But we aren’t married…’
‘We will be.’He raised her hands to his lips.‘Pick a date.I’ll arrange everything.’
‘You have been in bed for three days.’Her father cut across Johannes, his sternness as straight as a rail.‘The system is corrupt.There is no way to fight it.You need to see the surgeon.And to pay his fee, we need the prize and the work that will follow.The doctor is adamant.This cannot wait.’
‘What if the surgery doesn’t work?’Johannes snapped at her father.‘What if she falls again?’
‘When we are successful, I will employ someone to watch her to make sure she doesn’t fall.Until then, she’ll stay upstairs unless her mother is with her to help.’
‘You can’t stop her from going outside—’
‘I’m not stopping her, I’m protecting her—’
‘Iwill look after her now—’
‘Stop it!’Shrill and cutting, Florence screamed into the small office.‘Stop trying to fix me!’She hurled the words at her father, who stepped back with a flinch.Johannes opened his mouth with a smug tilt to his chin.‘And you,’ she shot at him before he could cut her off again, ‘were you going to ask me about any of your plans?Or had both of you simply decided you knew what was best?’
‘I want to look after you,’ Johannes said.‘And care for you, so that we can work together.Isn’t that what you want?’
The air hummed with the rise and fall of their breaths.A lifetime of apologies and failures and not being enough.For that was it: she was a failure.A failure to others and to herself.Perhaps she could not be pieced back together, but that did not mean she had to be passed between them as a problem.The parish bell chimed the hours.They watched her.Deathly silent.
‘Florence?’Her father hesitated.‘Whatdoyou want?’
What did she want?Because while she’d been abed, time had turned, and the world had forged ahead.It was time to make her choice.Time to place her bet.On the doctor and his scalpel?Or a husband with a new surname that would subsume her yet again?Who would discover, with the cruel trick of time, just how broken she was?That her body was a lie?Which horse to pick?Which man to follow?Her father to the surgeon’s scalpel or Johannes to the vicar’s bible?
‘I want…’
