Free Face by Aimee Liu, Daniel McNeill Page B

first night. “I know there aren’t any.”
    “With your track record?” I remembered his crack about my pregnancy being wishful thinking. “Statistically it doesn’t add
     up.”
    He sat on his suitcase and snapped the locks. “I had myself fixed, Maibelle. I’m not your kind of gambler.”
    He thanked me and hugged me and returned my key. But all I could think as he took his leave was, I’m not the only wounded
     bird.

4
    T hroughout my childhood in August, when her gallery was closed, my mother would fetch the old Rambler wagon from its slot at
     the East End Garage, pile the three of us kids in the back, and drive to her parents’ farm. The trip took three days. The
     address was Rural Route something. The closest neighbors were the Madisons, three miles down the road, the closest “town”
     a gathering of feed stores some fifteen miles away. The one landmark that distinguished this particular corner of the Midwest
     was the dark Gothic cathedral that rose on a hill due east of the farm like a citadel shadowing the countryside: Mount Assumption.
    The farm itself was standard Wisconsin issue—a white clapboard house with plain green trim, red barn with silo and rooster
     weather vane, and one hundred acres of rolling fields spanned by endless sundrenched sky. Grampa Henry grew wheat and alfalfa,
     kept a few chickens and sheep, and spent most of his days astride an enormous John Deere tractor. Gramma Lou grew the biggest
     zinnias and snapdragons in the county and would reliably have a tin of freshly baked oatmealraisin cookies awaiting our arrival. It all made me feel like a Fresh Air Fund kid, a refugee from the city.
    But the farm was also a part of me, because it was part of my mother. The living room shelves held scrapbooks crammed with
     everything from Diana’s first baby locks to the powdered remains of her high school corsages. The stairwell was lined with
     photographs of her skiing and swimming and camping, looking gangly and tan, with curls tighter than mine and the same corkscrew
     grin as Henry.
    In some of those pictures fair-haired men slung their arms possessively around her waist. When I asked about them, she’d say,
     “Oh, that’s Bill,” or Bob or George or Richard—old beaux, some of whom had begged her to marry them. Now they were real estate
     agents, doctors, and grain brokers. None had a last name like Chung.
    “So why didn’t you marry one of them?” asked Anna. “They look pretty cute to me.”
    “But, darling, I knew if I married any of them I’d be stuck here the rest of my life. In the Midwest, anyway.”
    “Too boring?”
    “Suffocating.”
    Just how determined my mother was to escape was revealed in a steamer trunk in the attic containing hundreds of sketches for
     evening dresses and high-fashion women’s suits. Although I was no great judge of art, I could tell these were serious drawings.
     The colors stayed inside the lines. The faces looked like movie stars. The detailing was minute. Each sketch was dated and
     signed in bold script. And some were clipped to carbons of letters addressed to the top couturiers of the day: Cristóbal Balenciaga,
     Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Jacques Fath, and Lucien Lelong. “Dear Miss Chanel,” read one:
    I am an aspiring young designer who
immensely
admires your work. The newspapers say that you have retired, but I do not believe it. You are too young and your ideas are
     too brilliant for you to quit designing. The world of haute couture needs your vision!
    Miss Chanel, you are a great artist, and I would be honored to serve as your apprentice. From the attached sketches, you can
     see how much your designs have influenced my own. If you would give me a chance, I will gladly pay my way to Paris, or wherever
     you might need me. Please consider me your humble servant. With
greatest
regard,
    Diana Campbell
    “How’d she know who to write to?” said Henry, staring at the foreign names.
    “She read the fashion pages,