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Stella feels confident with her decision up until the moment she steps into the Morrison residence. Or rather, she was able to push her doubt aside before that point, somewhat effectively. Enough to actually step up to the door, knock, and wait for someone to open. Which they do; a man in a perfectly pressed suit and neat hair opens the door for her and she finds explaining to this man, who is clearly a butler, that she’s there to see Mrs Morrison for a private matter. Thankfully it is enough to reference her husband, for all that calling herself Mrs Stephen Dallas leaves a bad taste in her mouth these days, to be allowed entry.
And then she steps into the house itself and the sight of it is almost enough to knock her over. With tall ceilings, perfectly pristine floors that shine with polish, gorgeous furniture and large open windows, it is so pretty, so perfect that it makes something within her want to scream. Her stomach ties itself into knots, her chest tightens, her heart beats like it wants to break her ribcage. Her lips purse and she feels quite suddenly like she is very, very small.
She is asked to wait in a sitting room as large and gorgeous as the receiving room, with plush little arm chairs and a beautiful couch, a fireplace and a lovely grand piano, and she has to pause before stepping in, carefully descend the steps, almost fearing for a second that her shoes will somehow ruin the lovely carpet. She takes a careful seat on one of the armchairs and, oh, it is comfortable too, not too stiff, not too soft, just right in a way it makes her want to lean back and relax. She doesn’t, of course not. She can’t allow herself to relax in this house, and even if she wanted to she doesn’t believe she could.
As she looks around the room her eye catches sight of the piano and she does a double take when she spots what rests atop it. She stands and makes her way across the room, needing to take a closer look but dreading it all the same. There, in a place of honour atop the grand piano in the sitting room of this house, the Morrison house, is a double frame with two pictures of people she knows well: one is her husband and the other, her daughter. In Stephen’s photo he looks as handsome and well-groomed as he always does, looking just outside of frame with a look on his eyes she knows well: he used to look at her like that, once. The way the photos are placed on the frame it almost seems like he’s looking at Lollie, on the next frame over, but Stella is sure she can guess who he was actually looking at when the picture was taken. And then, there’s Lollie’s photo. Her hair is done the way she likes it, with the front up and out of her face, and the sides curling beautifully and framing her face. It makes her look older, almost, but Stella can’t help but remember her as a baby, when her hair first started curling, and it makes her heart ache seeing how much her little girl has grown; she’s almost a woman now. She doesn’t realise she’s moved at all until her fingers are a hair’s width from touching the photo, and she allows herself the moment of weakness, running her finger down her daughter’s face, wishing it were actually her skin beneath her fingers and not glass and paper and ink.
“Mrs Dallas?” A voice calls from behind her and Stella startles, dropping her hand and turning.
“Are– Are you Mrs Morrison?”
“Yes,” the woman answers, and Stella allows herself to study her.
The woman is beautiful, her skin porcelain-perfect, her dark hair held at her sides and curling up in the back, dressed in a deceptively simple white summer dress, with accents in gold thread around the neck and a simple golden chain belt around her waist. She would almost look plain, and yet she doesn’t; she looks refined, like she needs no accessories to know her worth, her position and class. Stella, in her leopard print overcoat, in her favourite ruffled blouse, with her three most expensive golden necklaces hanging on her throat and matching bracelets, with her most beautiful pearl earrings, with her hair elaborately done up and curled in a way which took her over an hour and is now half-hidden under her hat, feels abruptly like she is naked, yet terribly weighted down.
She thinks of Lollie, suddenly, and the overheard conversation that brought her here. Those girls on the train and their gossiping; Lollie’s abrupt desire to leave the hotel with no explanation given. She embarrassed Lollie, apparently; her teenage friends made fun of her, found her dressing to be too overboard, exaggerated, ridiculous. A peacock, they’d called her, and Lollie had wanted to end their vacation early, because her friends had insulted her mother even without knowing she was Lollie’s mother. Lollie, who doesn’t like ruffles on her dresses, who prefers her jewellery to be plain and simple, who feels no need to dress up most of the time. Lollie, who grew up with beautiful dresses and as many options as she could wish for. Lollie who had only ever known life to be an abundance of pretty clothes, a plentiful table and gifts at every occasion.
Had Stella spoiled Lollie, wanting her to never know a childhood like her own? No. No, Lollie wasn’t spoiled, she was lucky, and she was kind. Always so kind, her Lollie, and even if she was spoiled she would still be kind, still is kind, the kindest person Stella knows. Always so kind to others, so kind to Stella herself. Lollie looked after her, even when it should be the reverse. A mother had to look after her daughter, it shouldn’t be up to the daughter to look after her mother. So, here Stella is, and she is going to look after Lollie in the best way she can now.
She walks up to Mrs Morrison and tries to find her words.
“I am sorry to bother you at home,” she starts, and Mrs Morrison interrupts, walking past her.
“Won’t you sit down?”
“No, what I have to say won’t take very long. It’s just that–”
“Oh, but we might as well be comfortable. It’s so very warm,” she says, and Stella can’t do anything but follow.
Mrs Morrison takes a seat on the edge of the nice couch with the floral print by the unlit fireplace, and Stella sits down on the chair just beside it.
“Won’t you take off your coat?” Mrs Morrison offers, and Stella just shakes her head.
She needs to focus.
“I know you must think it’s funny, me coming here like this. I’m not gonna beat around the bush, but ah... What I wanna know is if– if Stephen was free, if I got a divorce like his lawyer wanted, would– would you two get married?”
Mrs Morrison starts slightly at the question. She opens her mouth and closes it again, looking down at her hands rather than making eye contact with Stella. She takes an audible breath and then she answers.
“Yes we would. I am sorry if it is unpleasant, but...” She looks up then, and stretches a hand out towards Stella. “I’d rather that you knew the truth.”
“Yeah,” Stella says, satisfied. “Um, well,” she scoots her chair forwards, closer to Mrs Morrison. “What I wanted to know is if, if you and Stephen did get married, um...” She struggles, suddenly, to find her words, to give voice to her thoughts, her request. “What about Laurel, would you take her too?”
Mrs Morrison’s eyes widen and she reaches forward, grasping Stella’s hands on her own. “Oh, no Mrs Dallas,” she reassures, even as Stella’s stomach sinks. “I am a mother. Do you think I could ever deprive another mother of her own little girl?”
“Yeah, but if the other mother didn’t want–” She stops herself, pulling back. “I mean, uh. If she couldn’t very well have her. Well...” She shifts on her seat, watching Mrs Morrison’s face fall. Feeling the need to assure the other woman, Stella moves the cushion from the couch out of the way and changes seats herself, sitting next to Mrs Morrison, their knees touching where they both sit sideways, facing each other. “If it was inconvenient,” she tries.
“Inconvenient,” Mrs Morrison repeats, a question.
“Yeah,” Stella nods, and suddenly finds herself unable to meet the other woman’s eyes. “You see, I... Lollie is growing up now, and she, ah. Well, she’s quite a responsibility.” She sneaks a look at Mrs Morrison and quickly looks away, fidgeting with her gloves on her lap and then forcing her hands still.
“I don’t understand,” Mrs Morrison says, shifting closer to Stella again.
“Ah. Well, you see, it’s this way. From now on there’s lots of things Lollie would’ve begun having. Oh, I don’t mean money! But, uh. Um, dances and parties, you know! Good times, and– Really I, I’ve never been much of that sort of thing, so I...” She glances at Mrs Morrison again, trying to get a read on her face, hoping Stephen hasn’t told her much about Stella herself, hoping she can’t hear the lies.
“I feel that I’ve done about all I can for her, so I, I thought that you, being so crazy about her father, and she taking after him so much that, ah. Well, if you and Stephen got married, well, Lollie could come and live with you! And... Uh.” She looks at Mrs Morrison again but she isn’t looking at Stella now, she’s retreated slightly and is looking down instead. “Your name being Mrs Dallas, you see, you... Everybody would naturally think she was your little girl.” Another look, yet Mrs Morrison still isn’t looking at her. “And then when you went places, you see... Well...” She risks a longer glance this time, but the other woman still has her head bowed, and Stella follows her eyes down to her hands on her lap before she, too, looks away.
“You see. You’re the kind of a mother that any girl would be proud of,” she admits, her voice trembling only slightly, and out of the corner of her eye she spots Mrs Morrison looking up at her now. Then she leans forwards again, one arm reaching to wrap around Stella’s shoulders and the other grabbing at Stella’s upper arm and sliding downwards, coming to hold her elbow.
“I didn’t know anyone could be so unselfish,” Mrs Morrison says, leaning her face close to Stella’s, and she needs to stop her, to correct her, because she isn’t being unselfish. Stella isn’t sure what she is being right now, but she believes she’s been selfish for most of her life.
“And I’ll say one thing Mrs Morrison, you’ll never be ashamed of Lollie either!” The other woman gasps and shifts, somehow sitting even closer, her hand leaving Stella’s elbow to grasp at her hands instead. “Everybody is just crazy about her, she, well, she makes a wonderful impression, she, she’s so refined and elegant with her ways, with, you already know that.”
She waves a hand in a vague gesture, her eyes meeting Mrs Morrison’s and dropping slightly to scan the rest of her face where she finds a soft smile, and she looks away at the sight of those quirked lips, so lightly coloured pink.
“Anyway, she’s–” Stella glances at her out of the corner of her eye but Mrs Morrison has looked away, even though she hasn’t moved back and both her hands still hold onto Stella’s arm. “Well, erm. Anyway, she’s. Well, she’s crazy about you already,” she admits, her voice lowering. She looks back at her, even though Mrs Morrison won’t look at her, but she feels the need to watch the other woman’s face as she says the following words. “She don’t talk as much as she used to, but... That’s because she thinks I’m jealous or something,” she laughs slightly, even though it’s not funny, and looks away just as Mrs Morrison finally looks up at her. “And I– Oh, I guess I was a little bit,” she admits, and then looks back at Mrs Morrison quickly to add: “I’m not anymore! And you’ll see, in a little while she’ll–” She pauses and swallows daily, her throat suddenly arid and tight. “Well, in a little while she’ll... She’ll forget all about me, and... Why, it won’t be any time before she... She’ll love you just...” The words get caught on her throat and she has to work to tear them out, like tearing open her throat, her heart. “Just like you were her real mother.”
The last word, mother, breaks as it escapes her lips, coming out high-pitched and tasting of tears. Stella has to turn her head away, hide her eyes behind her hand as she wills herself not to cry. She can do this. She has to do this. For Lollie.
“And, oh Mrs Morrison, she’s so wonderful you don’t know!”
She looks back at the other woman only to see her shaking her head.
“I do know,” she says, leaning closer again, closer, their faces only inches away. “And I know that it hasn’t come only from her father.”
Her eyes blink, long lashes batting away and Stella can almost feel the gust of wind they produce against her cheeks. Their eyes lock together for a long moment before Mrs Morrison looks down, slightly, like she’s glancing at Stella’s lips, and then she looks away, her face retreating slightly and looking down. She opens her mouth to speak and Stella finds her eyes drawn to it before she, too, forces herself to look away, look down at where their hands meet, holding each other closely, their bodies pressed together side to side, from shoulder to knee.
Suddenly, Stella realises they are too close.
“I have to go,” she says, standing up even as Mrs Morrison clings to her elbow and raises with her, unwilling to let her go, until she does. “Lollie doesn’t know I’ve come here, and I– I don’t want her to yet, she... She’s awful funny and–” She continues speaking, she is certain. She says something else about Lollie, about not wanting her to know about this visit, but she can’t recall a single word she said since the moment Mrs Morrison stepped behind her, their bodies once again pressed close, now her back to Mrs Morrison’s front, and once again her hand holding onto Stella’s arm, the other on her lower back. She mentions the divorce, which he has by now decided she will definitely get, and Mrs Morrison —Mrs Dallas by then— being the one to break the news to Lollie about her moving with them, but her focus is on the sensation of a hand trailing lightly over her arm, a firm caress that has her hair standing on end even with her overcoat sheltering her skin. She feels hot, not because of her coat but with the warmth of another body so close to hers.
“It’ll be easier that way,” she says, about breaking the news to Lollie. She turns then, to finally step away, to leave, but she’s stopped before she can walk the second step, when the hand on her arm suddenly closes around it in a tight, but not painful, grip.
“Mrs Dallas,” Mrs Morrison says. “Stop.”
Stella stops.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says, and Stella shakes her head.
“I do,” she insists, but doesn’t try to pull her arm free. Instead, she allows herself to be turned around so they, once again, stand face to face.
“You don’t,” Mrs Morrison repeats. “Lollie doesn’t... Well, she is growing up. She will be a woman soon, as you say. There may be things I can give her, that is true, and she might come to love me like a mother as well. But you are her mother, and you will always be that. Even if– If Lollie does come to live here, she will not forget you. I may become her mother, but you will also be.”
Mrs Morrison steps closer, closer, right up into Stella’s space, and she’s so close, her eyes locked right into hers, when she says: “You are a very good mother, Mrs Dallas. Lollie appreciates that. She talks about you a lot, you know. She loves you very much. She doesn’t want you to stop being her mother.”
“But she wants you as her mother,” Stella breathes, her voice quiet like the confession might break the air around her as much as it breaks her heart.
“Maybe she does,” Mrs Morrison says, and she, too, is quiet, and she’s so close Stella feels her breath against her own lips. “But she might do better with two mothers, than just the one.”
And then, before Stella can even process that statement, Mrs Morrison leans forwards the last few inches between them and their lips meet. She kisses Stella lightly, a breath of lips on lips, as quiet as their conversation has been, and yet it gets Stella’s heart racing worse than it’d been earlier. Fear replaced by something else, she feels electrified, her pulse beats loudly beneath her skin, her eyes slip closed beyond her control and she sighs into the kiss, kissing back just as lightly, as quietly. It’s a soft kiss, the sort where you pull back only for your lips to meet again, and again, and again, on and on and on, a multitude of kisses that are really just one, leisurely long kiss that doesn’t actually last for that long but feels infinite.
And then the kiss ends, by mutual, unspoken agreement, their lips separate and simply don’t meet again, but instead their foreheads do, their noses clashing side to side as they rest leaning into each other, breathing the same air, holding each other close. Stella finds her hands are wrapped around Mrs Morrison’s waist, while the other woman’s hands hold onto Stella’s neck, a thumb rubbing circles onto the exposed skin just above her necklaces, hidden under her hair. She feels the sudden urge to rip her necklaces off, to expose more of her neck.
She sighs, lifts her head. She doesn’t step back, however, from the embrace, and doesn’t let her hands fall.
“I really should go,” she says.
Mrs Morrison meets her eyes. “I suppose you must.”
“I am getting that divorce,” Stella tells her, and she nods. “And you’ll marry Stephen.”
“I will,” Mrs Morrison agrees.
“And Lollie will come to live with you.”
“You must come to visit, then,” Mrs Morrison says, and Stella stares, her mouth popping open. “Well, Lollie will miss you,” Mrs Morrison argues with a smile.
Stella nods slowly. “I suppose she will,” she says slowly.
“She will,” Mrs Morrison affirms. “And you will come to visit.”
“I suppose I will,” Stella repeats, and she finds that she, too, is beginning to smile.
When she arrived at the Morrison residence Stella did so with dread pooling on her stomach and a broken heart. When she leaves she does so feeling significantly lighter, knowing she won’t lose her daughter and with something like hope rattling in her heart.