They Both Wanted Me Every Day — Now They Both Want Sunday to Last Longer Without Me Chapter 11

They Both Wanted Me Every Day — Now They Both Want Sunday to Last Longer Without Me Chapter 11

I took the documents back to the Sycamore House. Mia and Frank had already organized the embroidery patterns. Exhibition staff came in the afternoon to catalog.

Mia was so nervous she hadn’t drunk water all morning. “Miss Vance… what if I say the wrong thing?”

I handed her a glass of water. “Just say what you saw. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.”

She nodded.

When they got to the navy gown, the director asked, “Will this be exhibited?”

I said, “Yes.”

Mia looked at me. “But Nora touched it.”

“Which is exactly why it should be.”

On the exhibit tag, I wrote the work’s name, The Old Umbrella.

The caption was one line, [Things that were lent out still deserve to see light when they come back.]

…

Three days before the exhibition, Nora’s atelier started losing orders. Chad Harrington had promised her stores—but that fell through too.

She came to the Sycamore House, standing at the gate, afraid to come in.

“Lena.”

I was reviewing the pieces. “What?”

She handed me a paper bag. Inside were the keys to the storefront. “The contract’s up. I’m moving out.”

I had Frank take them.

Nora’s tears spilled over again. “Did it really have to come to this?”

I said, “You two are the ones who started walking away.”

She shook her head. “I was just so jealous. You had everything growing up. Even the scraps you threw my way—I clung to them like they were my only lifeline.”

I closed the ledger. “When I gave you that storefront, I wasn’t asking you to get on your knees and thank me.”

She stopped.

“Nora. I gave you that storefront because you said you wanted your own space. You turned it into something I owed you—that’s why you kept taking without hesitation.”

She couldn’t even cry anymore.

A car pulled up outside. Ethan got out.

When he saw Nora, his first instinct wasn’t to protect her—it was to look at me.

Nora saw it too. That look said more than any words could.

Ethan was here to deliver the dissolution papers. He’d signed them—but he didn’t hand them over right away.

“Lena. I want to renegotiate.”

Nora stood at the gate, still clutching the string of the paper bag. She asked softly, “Ethan, weren’t you going to drive me back?”

He didn’t turn around. “Get in the car first.”

Nora’s face fell, bit by bit.

I used to watch him protect her like that. Now she got to watch him put her behind him.

She didn’t leave. “Are you regretting it?”

Ethan was silent.

Nora laughed—an ugly sound. “You said you just felt sorry for me. You said Lena didn’t understand your exhaustion. Now she’s done with you, and suddenly she’s the good one again?”

Ethan frowned. “Nora. Not here.”

“Why not?”

Her voice finally rose. “In that coffee shop, you’re the one who said Sundays weren’t long enough. On the birthday cake, you’re the one who said not to put her name on it.”

“And when that gown went south, you’re the one who said let her take the fall—because she’s got the Vances behind her.”

Ethan cut her off sharply. “Enough.”

It wasn’t enough.

I looked at Nora. “Keep going.”

Like it was her last lifeline, she kept staring at him.

“The sponsorship letter—you told me not to worry about it. You said if Lena got squeezed a little, she’d come back and help us like she always did.”

Mia came out of the house with a notebook. Her face went white listening.

Ethan saw her and stopped talking.

I asked, “Anything else?”

Nora wiped her tears. “Yes.”

She pulled an old leather cord from her bag. “This one—you never took it off. You gave it to me that night and said Lena would definitely be upset if she saw it—told me to send her a photo to test her.”

Ethan’s face twisted. “Nora. You’re out of your mind.”

She threw the cord to the ground. “Yeah. I’m crazy. Seven years I spent fighting for whatever crumbs of affection you two threw my way—until even I started believing they were mine.”