The Witness

hurting your family that way. Call me; I know you’ve got the number.

Reality said he had to tell the sisters soon. Tracey and Marsh would be back in town today, Daniel would be meeting Tracey for the first time tomorrow, and Monday the public would be streaming into the gallery if Marie got up the courage to open for the day. Tracey and Marie needed at least one more day to adjust to the huge news about their father before Luke pulled up the past and made it a living thing for them again. But putting it off longer than Sunday night was simply too much of a risk. Luke carried the gear out to his personal car and locked it in the trunk.

The mailman was late this morning.

Marie could see the reporters and cameramen staking out space on the sidewalk below the apartment. They came and went from the deli and the corner store, but otherwise they mingled and talked among themselves or stopped people passing by to do spot interviews. Twice she’d been spotted as she looked down from the new window, and flashbulbs had gone off like fireworks below, as if a photo could be gotten at such a steep angle through a windowpane that was catching the sunlight.

Opening the gallery was not even a consideration today. Marie left it closed and dark and thought about trying to find an accommodation with the press to get them to call it a day, but her courage had deserted her. She didn’t want to face more reporters. Connor had been good for her yesterday, making even that unreal day of the news conference workable. But he wasn’t around today, the gallery was closed and would stay closed, and she was effectively hiding, waiting for her sister Tracey, who should be back sometime in the next hour.

Marie retreated to the spare-bedroom studio. She’d already spent two hours this morning on the phone talking with friends about the events of the last few days on top of three hours on the phone last night; she was talked out. She’d scratched out a list of things to do in the next month with the money, from changes at the gallery to art auctions she wanted to go see. It was numbing to consider further what she should do.

Find Mandy, fix up the gallery, collect a few personal works of art, figure out who is going to remain safe friends in the future, and get on with things…. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was what she had.

God, it’s day two. Tell me this gets easier soon. The depression had been weighing on her since she woke. I’m sure You’ll help me figure out what to do with the money and the pressure that’s come with it, but I wonder if it was such a good thing to learn my mother had a many-year affair with a married man. I’m ashamed for the family we were rather than the family I’d always created in my child’s-eye view of our lives. It was easier with the fantasy than to learn the reality. I don’t know what to do with that hurt at my mom and the father who didn’t want to acknowledge me as his child. All those prayers growing up that my mom would marry so I could have a dad; all those painful days being raised by my aunt as other kids had moms and dads to be there for birthdays and holidays. This has brought it all back, and those memories are fresh and the pain still raw.

Marie picked up one of her new brushes to prep a blank canvas. She couldn’t change any of it; she could only try to find some peace to live with it. And it wasn’t going to be an easy adjustment.

Her new cousin wasn’t such a bad thing. She really liked Daniel and the way he’d handled this. Dinner last night had been filled with stories and laughter, and she thought his personal art collection first-rate. They’d found topics of conversation that were comfortable ground, and she felt a bit easier at the idea of picking up the phone now to hear him on the other end of the line. She thought Tracey would like him too. They’d spend the day with him tomorrow, and he’d promised to have the letters and photos he had of their mother available for them to take home.

It bothered her that Daniel didn’t believe in God, but he’d been kind about it when she’d wanted to discuss one of the gifts she hoped to give to her church and how best it could be given. They had had very different lives growing up, and it was going to take a while to feel like she knew him well enough to understand him. But she was trying, and Daniel had met her more than partway, having been remarkably open in his conversation last night about his family and his relationship with his uncle.

And Connor-Marie knew she would have eventually met him through his connection with Marsh, but she doubted under different circumstances Connor would have chosen to spend his day off with her so soon after they first met. She had yet to spend an hour with him where it felt like she was being herself-the money, the situation, the pure shock of all the adjustments had left him seeing some convoluted form of who she really was. Even so, the friendship that had formed over the course of those hours felt like something solid. She could trust him to be what he seemed, and that mattered.

The doorbell screeched. She walked back into the kitchen and to the nook where the security monitor had been installed. It looked like a deliveryman waiting outside her apartment entrance, but then reporters could get disguised as about anyone. And if she opened the door she was just asking for microphones to push her way and cameras to go off. She thought about ignoring the doorbell, but it would be rude if it was a legitimate delivery.

She hesitated and then pushed the button Connor had shown her. “Bryce, I’m going to get a delivery at the street door.”

“Thanks. Go ahead. I’ll be around there.”

She released the button and realized she’d just informed security for the first time of her movements. She wondered how long, if ever, it would take before the absolute strangeness of that wore off. She might have been told Tom Bryce would be around to keep hassles down around the gallery, but it didn’t seem to change his plans having the gallery closed rather than open. He simply shifted his attention to watching out for her at the flat.

She pushed a bill to use as a delivery tip into her pocket and walked down the main staircase. Bryce would probably be standing next to the delivery guy, having already confirmed the package was safe before she got the new locks on the door undone, but at this point that kind of attention was fine with her. She didn’t want unpleasant surprises.

She pushed open the door.

“I’ve got a package for Marie Griffin.”

“Yes, that’s me.” She signed the form on the clipboard where indicated. There were flashbulbs going off and shouted questions from the reporters that she did her best to ignore. She thanked the deliveryman who looked ready to bolt with the tip. She got a good hold on the box and took a step back inside, letting the door close and giving her back some breathing room. Tom Bryce standing between her and the reporters helped-none were likely to want to challenge passing that man to get close to her-but still her heart raced with the panic of all those cameras. All for a delivery box. She regretted hoping for another scandal to appear somewhere in town if only to distract the tabloid press and give them some other story to chase.

She looked at the package. She hadn’t been expecting anything today. In the upper-left corner of the box where the return address would normally be were the initials of Connor Black, written in a strong, confident hand.

She sat down right where she was on the stairs and opened the box.

A turtle.

A real, live, moving, breathing turtle.

She tugged out the card in the corner of the box, and her smile blossomed. My advice-you should take life slow for a while. Connor.

She turned the card to see what he had written along the side. No need to go too slow though. What’s your private, private phone number?

Her laughter echoed in the stairway.

She looked at the turtle. “I’m going to name you Oscar. I have no idea if you are a girl or a guy and I don’t really care because I don’t like turtles, but you’ll do.”

She carried her new company upstairs.

“I’m going to paint and think, and when I’m no longer in a tongue-tied mess, call him. What do you think of that?”

The turtle didn’t move.

“Maybe waiting an hour from the time of the delivery would be long enough to convey I’m following his advice and taking it slow?”

The turtle still didn’t move.

“You are alive, Oscar?”

She thought she saw one eye close for a moment.