Siena’s voice was gentle. It eased her out of the best nap of her life.
Viv looked down, and someone had covered her with a light blanket.
“What the heck, what time is it?”
“It’s three in the afternoon. You’ve been napping, Aunt Goldie said, for three hours!”
“Oh, wow, ugh, what?” Viv shook off the disorientation of losing all that time. But she felt surprisingly alert now, awake.
“She covered you with the blanket and kept checking on you to be sure a goose didn’t decide to poo on ya,” Siena said and then sat next to her on the adjacent lounge.
“I guess I needed it. I swear that was the best rest I’ve had in ages. What an old lady.”
“You’re healing,
“Let’s hope.” Viv watched as Siena bit her nail again.
Siena was anxious. Viv could see that. Viv felt a stab of guilt. She’d made her daughter anxious. Her cancer, and her reaction yesterday to this business idea, both of them had turned her normally even keel girl into someone who bites her fingernails.
Viv tried to open her mind a little beyond the word “no” when it came to the future. She had spent her entire parenting life protecting Siena, and this year she’d dropped the ball. She couldn’t even see the ball.
She changed the subject from rest or talk of healing.
“So, you went into town. How was the space?” Viv didn’t want to encourage this idea of a boutique, but her desire to see her daughter was stronger than her reticence about the plan.
Siena lit up at the question.
“Mom, you need to see it! Downtown Irish Hills is the cutest ever, and it’s all just getting started. And the space is, it’s everything we’d need. It’s got a huge opportunity for display in the windows, at the sidewalk--oh, it’s even got adorable office space in back we could both use to work. Libby even suggested a little break room, too. I like that. The floor, the floor, is to die for. It’s something we’d put in ourselves, except it’s already there!”
“Ah, sounds lovely.” And it did. Viv was sure Libby had done things right with whatever renovations she oversaw in Irish Hills, or anywhere for that matter.
“And we could be a part of something, of the town, you know? They have little parades, and they go nuts around North of Nash.”
“North of Nash?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s North of Nash, as in Nashville. It’s this huge country music festival up the road at the racetrack. Aunt Libby said thanks to Aunt Goldie, the country stars just swarm the place in the summer.”
“Ah, okay.” Viv was trying to keep up with her daughter’s speedy delivery of the virtues of Irish Hills.
“And we’d fit in, I think, really well. We’d really add to the reason people are coming here. Plus, I love the idea of helping to revitalize a town. It’s a mission, you know? The town grows, and we grow Vivian Blackwood Designs.”
“There’s not much to grow. You know that sales are not great. I mean, that’s my fault for not having anything new.”
“Oh, that’s why we’re here, to be new!”
Viv couldn’t help but smile at the light in Siena’s eyes. She was excited, keyed up for the future, and bursting with ideas. If only that optimism was contagious.
“Honey, I love that you’re excited. I do. I want to be too, but I just don’t have the energy yet.” She added the yet as though, at some future date, Viv would be energized. She didn’t see that happening, but she also didn’t want to crush the dreams of her sweet girl. Yet. Or ever. She left it unsaid.
“I want you to be better, to rest, to get stronger. I don’t want to push you too hard. Not after all you’ve been through, but how about this: I do all of it. I set up the store, staff it, stock it, all the things. You do what you’re a genius at, and that’s design the new line.”
“I don’t know about genius.” Viv put her hand out, and Siena took it in hers. Siena’s fingers were long and tapered. Viv’s were stronger and shorter, the veins in her hands looking ropey to her own eyes.
“You are, mama, you are. But there’s no need for you to do too much. I will get this store going. And you can work and rest to suit how you’re feeling.”
Viv had said no. She’d been unequivocal about it. Siena’s eyes sparkled, and her body radiated with energy and possibility. It had been a year of Siena doing everything to keep Viv on track with treatments and appointments. Her daughter needed something to look forward to that wasn’t her mother’s cancer treatment or support meeting and worse.
Viv didn’t have the heart to say no again. She did not want to design a new line. She did not want to open a store that featured her career-minded fashion. She just wanted to—
