My Mothre’s Guilt journal Became My Cancellation Notice Chapter 08

My Mothre’s Guilt journal Became My Cancellation Notice Chapter 08

I moved into the townhouse my grandmother had left me.

It stood at the corner of an old block, with a vintage couture atelier on the ground floor.

The sign out front was a little worn. Faded floral decals clung to the glass, and when I pushed the door open, I could smell fabric and the lingering heat of an iron.

Mrs. Carter said my grandmother had loved sitting behind the counter to read when she was young.

I carried the books up to the study on the second floor.

On the first page, I saw a note my grandmother had left in the margin.

[If Ivy wants to learn, let her. It never hurts for a girl to read more.]

I touched that line and looked at it for a long time.

So someone really had wanted me to learn.

Someone had wanted me to have something of my own, my own judgment, and my own path.

Not to spend my life examining myself and admitting fault at every turn.

Garrett came by once.

He stood outside the atelier and did not come in.

Tessa went to invite him inside, but he only had someone bring in a document envelope.

Inside were the photos of the accountability journal pages the Graham family had received that day.

There was also a letter.

[These should have been yours to decide what to do with.]

I spread the papers across the table.

Ivy Sullivan.

Rigid and unforgiving.

Disrespectful of her mother’s guidance.

Unable to tolerate her sister.

Every word had come from my mother’s hand.

In the past, I had been afraid of those words.

I was afraid they would make my mother sad, afraid they would disappoint my father, and afraid they would let outsiders see everything supposedly wrong with me.

Now they lay on the table as nothing more than a few sheets of paper.

I lit the metal fire bowl.

Tessa also brought out the copy shop’s duplicate file.

When the flames caught the edges of the pages, the ink quickly blackened and curled.

Page after page burned away, leaving a faint haze of smoke in the room.

Tessa asked softly, “Ivy, are you going to burn the originals too?”

I picked up the first page.

The one from when I was six.

It said I had hurt my sister’s heart over a necklace.

I threw it into the fire.

The paper burned through quickly.

I lowered my head and looked at the necklace around my neck.

Ivy, safe and sound.

I closed my fingers around the pendant.

It had been away from me for eighteen years. The gold was no longer as bright as it once had been, and there was a tiny scratch along the edge.

But my name was still there.

That night, Mrs. Carter came in to turn on the lamps.

“Miss Ivy, the master tailor from the atelier is coming to meet you tomorrow.”

I nodded. “Have him come at ten.”

“What about the fabric suppliers?”

“Send me the ledgers first. I’ll look through them before I decide.”

Mrs. Carter smiled.

She rarely smiled, and when she did, even the fine lines at the corners of her eyes softened.

“You’re like the late Mrs. Whitman, Miss Ivy.”

I walked to the window.

Outside, dawn had not yet broken, and only a few streetlamps lit the old block.

Back at the Sullivan house, I used to be afraid whenever it was this hour.

I was afraid the light in the study would turn on again.

Afraid my mother would sit there and write another mistake with my name attached to it.

Now there was no study.

No locked drawer with a keypad.

No one could take my name and use it to answer for someone else’s mistakes.

The sky slowly brightened.

Tessa came in from downstairs, carrying a mug of hot tea. Her voice sounded a little lighter.

“Ivy, the master tailor will be here soon.”

I touched the necklace at my throat.

“Open the doors.”

Mr. Turner from the atelier arrived very early.

When he came in, the hem of his coat still carried the dampness of the morning fog. At the sight of me, he bent slightly at the waist and greeted me by my new title.

“Miss Ivy.”

I froze for a moment, then quickly asked Mrs. Carter to help him sit.

But Mr. Turner did not sit down right away. His fingers rubbed anxiously against the seams of his trousers, and his voice was hoarse.

“I failed the late Mrs. Whitman. All these years, half of the atelier’s profits have gone to the Sullivan family. I tried several times to send the books to you, but someone always stopped them before they reached you.”

I pushed the ledger toward him.

“Starting this year, the accounts no longer go through the Sullivan family.”

Mr. Turner looked up at me.

I picked up the pen and wrote my name on the last page of the ledger.

Ivy Sullivan.

My hand still felt a little unsteady as I formed the letters.

Back at the Sullivan house, my mother always said girls should not be too driven. She said things like ledgers were only something I needed to understand in broad strokes.

Only now did I realize that writing my own name in the books was not something frightening at all.