Part 2

Three months earlier, I had promised Isabelle something special. A gown designed exclusively for her. Ivory silk. A graceful neckline. Nothing excessively dramatic. She had watched me sketch it one evening. "It's beautiful," she whispered. "Wait until you see the finished version." "Are you really making it for me?" "Of course." She leaned down and kissed my cheek. I remembered feeling pleased. Not because she was happy. Because she still looked at me as though I were extraordinary. Then Camille saw the finished gown during a fitting. She loved it. She begged to wear it to an important fashion industry dinner. I agreed. Without asking Isabelle. Without even considering her. Photographs appeared online that night. Camille stood beneath glittering chandeliers, smiling in the ivory gown I had promised my wife. When I returned home, Isabelle was sitting beside an untouched birthday cake. Its candles had burned down. "Wasn't that dress supposed to be mine?" she asked. "It's a sample, Isabelle." "You said you designed it for me." "I designed it for the collection. You misunderstood." She stared at me. Then she asked quietly, "Are you in love with someone else?" I remember feeling irritated. Not frightened. Not guilty. I was annoyed that she had come close to the truth. "You're imagining things." "I'm asking you to be honest with me." "And I'm asking you to stop inventing problems." I walked upstairs. The following morning, the cake was gone. So was the sketch. I never apologized. I never replaced the dress. And I never asked why she had stopped mentioning her birthday. Now, sitting beside seven boxes, I finally understood what that silence had meant. I looked toward the tablet. The screen had dimmed. I touched it. The words appeared again. Fifteen Years. Beneath the title was a small message. "Gabriel, before you decide that I abandoned you, please remember how many times you left me while still living in the same house." My chest tightened. I pressed play. The screen turned black. Then Isabelle appeared. She was sitting in the same bedroom, wearing the blue cardigan I had just searched for. Her eyes were tired. But her voice was steady. "Hello, Gabriel." She paused. "I don't know when you'll watch this. I don't know whether you'll be angry, relieved, or too busy to finish it." She looked directly into the camera. "But there is something I need you to understand." Her lips trembled briefly. "I didn't leave you because of seven days in Rome." I stopped breathing. "I left because those seven days finally showed me what fifteen years of loving you had done to me." Then she reached toward the camera. And the first image from our past filled the screen. PART 2: THE WOMAN WHO BUILT MY EMPIRE The first thing I saw was myself at twenty-seven, standing in our tiny apartment with a cheap measuring tape around my neck. I had forgotten that video existed. The picture was grainy. The lighting was terrible. Behind me, fabric hung over the backs of mismatched chairs. Someone had placed a saucepan beneath a leaking window. I was holding a jacket that I had spent almost three weeks trying to perfect. "Gabriel, show me the sleeves," Isabelle's younger voice said from behind the camera. I turned. "They're not ready." "Show me anyway." I lifted the jacket. One sleeve was longer than the other. Isabelle began laughing. "Don't laugh," I protested. "I'm not laughing at you." "Then what?" "I'm laughing because you look like you're about to declare war on that jacket." I laughed too. The sound startled me. I had not heard myself laugh that freely in years. I remembered that evening. We had eaten pasta from chipped bowls while discussing my dream of opening a fashion house. I wanted to create something that lasted. Something that would be remembered. Isabelle had listened to every impossible ambition as if each one were reasonable. In the video, she moved the camera closer. "Tell me what you're going to do when you're famous." I grinned. "Buy you a better apartment." "And?" "A proper studio." "And?" I pretended to think. "A dress that doesn't have crooked sleeves." She laughed again. Then her voice softened. "Promise me something." "What?" "When everyone starts telling you how amazing you are, don't forget the people who knew you before they cared."

I looked straight into the camera. "How could I ever forget you?" The video froze. Isabelle's present-day voice returned. "I believed you, Gabriel." Four words. They hurt more than an accusation. The next recording showed our first fashion presentation. It had taken place in a modest rented room with folding chairs. There were no celebrities. No professional photographers. No enormous floral arrangements. I remembered being terrified because several garments had arrived unfinished. Isabelle had stayed awake all night repairing seams. At dawn, she had pressed my shirt, prepared the garment bags, and reminded me to eat something. In the recording, I was standing beside her. My arm was around her waist. A reporter from a small local publication asked how I had managed to put together the collection. I answered immediately. "Because my wife refuses to let me give up." Isabelle lowered her head, embarrassed. I kissed her temple. "She's the reason any of this exists." I stared at the screen. I remembered those words. What I could not remember was when I had stopped saying them. More images followed. Our first real studio. A larger apartment. The opening of our first boutique. Employees gathering around a table covered in fabric swatches. A champagne bottle we had saved for months because we wanted to open it only when we made our first significant profit. In nearly every recording, Isabelle was somewhere nearby. Sometimes she stood beside me. Sometimes behind the camera. Sometimes in the background, fixing something no one else had noticed. She was never the loudest person in the room. Yet nothing seemed to function without her. I had spent the previous decade describing the Laurent brand as the result of my singular vision. Watching those recordings, I realized how carefully I had edited my own history. Isabelle had not invented the designs. That part had been mine. But she had made them possible. She had kept our household functioning when I could think about nothing but deadlines. She had understood fabrics, construction, and the difference between something that looked impressive on paper and something a person could actually wear. She had given years of her life to a dream that eventually stopped including her. I watched another recording. It showed the evening our company secured its first major international opportunity. I was standing in our living room holding a glass of champagne. Isabelle was beside me. "To Gabriel Laurent!" someone shouted. Everyone cheered. Then I turned toward Isabelle. "Actually," I said, raising my glass, "to us." She smiled. I could barely look at it. The image faded. Present-day Isabelle appeared again. "I didn't put these recordings together to tell you that you owe me your success," she said. "I loved what we built. I was proud of you. I was proud of us." She folded her hands. "But after a while, I noticed something changing." I leaned closer. "At first, you stopped asking what I thought about the collections."

She gave a small, sad smile. "That was all right. You had experienced designers working for you. I understood that." "Then you stopped asking whether I wanted to attend the events." She looked down. "Eventually, you stopped noticing whether I was there at all." I closed my eyes. Images came back in fragments. Fashion weeks. Award ceremonies. Private dinners. Isabelle standing near a doorway while I spoke to photographers. The times I had asked her to move out of the frame because someone wanted a photograph of me alone. The times I had introduced her merely as my wife, without mentioning that she had worked beside me before there was anything to introduce. I remembered one particular conversation.