The design

The year I turned fifteen, I started going up to my mother’s studio every weekend, bringing her old sketchbook and practicing the patterns she’d once taught me.

It was the only place I still felt close to her, where the afternoon light poured through the tall window and fell exactly on the wooden desk where she used to sit.

One Saturday afternoon, I climbed up to find the door standing wide open.

Inside, two workmen were carrying my mother’s drafting table out, while Ophélie stood directing them, a new blue curtain in her hands.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my throat tightening.

“Oh, Cécile,” she turned, her smile unchanged.

“I thought it was time this room served a real purpose. Maxime needs a quiet space to study and find inspiration for his writing — you know, his teacher says he has real talent for it.”

“This is my mother’s studio,” I said, my voice trembling.

“You can still draw in your own room,” Ophélie replied, her tone as light as if she were discussing the weather.

“I’ve had your mother’s things moved down to storage. You can go look if you want to keep anything.”

I ran down to the basement and found the drafting table, the paint box, and the rolls of my mother’s linen stacked among old cardboard boxes, covered in a thin layer of dust, as if they’d been forgotten for years rather than moved that very day.

I held the paint box to my chest, feeling as though I were cradling some part of my mother’s body that had been thrown away.

Mathilde found me sitting among the cardboard boxes in the basement, her eyes red but her tears held back.

“I tried to keep as much as I could, dear,” she said, kneeling beside me, her voice a whisper as though afraid someone might overhear.

“I hid your mother’s oldest sketchbook — the one from before she was even married — in the linen cupboard in the laundry room. Madame Ophélie doesn’t know it exists.”

I looked up at her, not quite believing that somewhere in this house, there was still someone quietly standing on my mother’s side.

“Why would you do that?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Because I served your mother for fifteen years before you were even born,” she said, smoothing my hair the way a grandmother might.

“I can’t stop them from clearing out the room, Cécile — I’m only the housekeeper. But I can hold on to a few fragments, and wait for the day you’re old enough to need them.”

That evening, I found my father in his study, hoping he would intervene.

“Papa,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Ophélie cleared out Mama’s studio to give it to Maxime.”

My father didn’t look up from the financial reports he was reading.

“I know,” he said.

“I already agreed to it.”

“Why would you—”

“Cécile.” He cut me off, his voice tired.

“You’ve always been the stronger one between the two of you. You don’t need a room to draw in to be all right, but Maxime needs somewhere to feel like he truly belongs in this house. You understand that better than he does, don’t you?”

I stood there, unable to believe my own ears.

“That was Mama’s room,” I said again, my voice breaking this time.

My father finally looked up, and in that moment I saw something cross his eyes — not anger, but a pain he was working hard to suppress.

“Your mother isn’t there anymore, Cécile,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Keeping that room only makes it harder for me.”

He turned back to his reports, as if the conversation were over.

I left his study that night without crying, only feeling a cold emptiness spreading through my chest.

Julien found me sitting alone in the old oak tree at midnight, clutching my mother’s paint box.

He said nothing, only climbed up to sit beside me, staying there in silence until I stopped shaking.

“You don’t owe anyone a room, a place, or any piece of your childhood, Cécile,” he said quietly, once I’d calmed down.

“Not even when your father says otherwise.”