to say all the right things without acknowledging the terrible truths at the heart of Sally’s life. Ten years later as I stood watching her daughter’s body trembling, I knew that I had finally found the words I should have used on that grey February day. Sally’s life wasn’t complete. That was the tragedy. She had just begun to discover her worth when her life ended.
I walked over to Taylor’s painting and looked at it carefully. “You’ve only just begun. You don’t have to measure yourself against anyone. You’re that good.” When I put my arm around my daughter, the paint that had spattered from her brush onto my hand dripped onto her shirt. “Sorry,” I said. “I wrecked your shirt.”
The shirt was already covered in paint. “It’s okay,” she said. “I have ten other shirts just like this one.”
We both laughed, and then we moved so we could look more closely at the self-portrait. There was violence in the lines and the colours suggested turbulence in the relationship between artist and medium. “You’re not where you want to be yet, are you?” I said.
She sighed heavily. “No. Not even close.”
“But closer,” I said. “Taylor, this really is the strongest work you’ve ever done. And you have something your mother never had. Time. You have time to get where you need to go. Find out who you are, and I have a feeling the rest will come.”
CHAPTER 12
It was close to eleven when I parked in the space reserved for tenants and guests of the condo on Scarth Street. Louise Hunter’s Mercedes was already there, and when I got off the elevator, I could hear her practising. I revelled in the moment, letting the Bach wash over me and watching the mirrored reflection of the twinkling white lights wound around a ficus by a window in the corridor. The morning had been a trying one. Despite what I’d told Zack about my bold plan of attack, I knew I was more roar than tiger. As I approached the door that held the wreath that was the twin of mine, I remembered Zack’s observation that the French word for grenade was pomegranate. I pressed the bell, wondering how the grenade I was about to throw would change the lives of the people waiting for me inside.
Myra was dressed handsomely in a grey sweater and skirt, grey tights, and Capezio flats that matched the fuchsia in her patterned silk scarf. She tilted her head at the sound of the music.
“That must be lovely to listen to,” I said.
“It is when the pianist is sober,” Myra said. “Sadly, that has become increasingly rare of late.”
I listened for a moment. “She sounds in fine form now.”
Myra raised an eyebrow. “Have you heard Angela Hewitt play the Bach?”
The penny dropped. “We’re listening to a recording,” I said.
“Yes. Sad, isn’t it? Louise Hunter and I haven’t spoken much, but when we moved in, she told me she used the Hewitt recording to inspire her; now it seems she uses it to punish herself.”
“Louise told you that?”
“She didn’t have to. The sequence speaks for itself. At the beginning, when Louise was working towards what seemed like a realizable goal, she would listen to Hewitt, and then play the Bach. Every day her performance got stronger; suddenly, she just seemed to lose her way. Her playing became sloppy and inaccurate. She would pound the piano. Finally, she’d stop and put on the recording.”
“And you think she’s punishing herself by listening to how the Bach should be played?”
“I do. That’s why I never complain when she’s making a hash of it,” Myra said. “Who knows what burdens another person is carrying?”
To quote Zack, Myra’s words “unmanned” me, but I followed her into the apartment. There was no turning back. The tough questions had to be asked, and I was positioned to ask them.
I steeled myself but was immediately granted a reprieve. After Myra had taken my things, she touched my arm. “Could I ask a favour? I have a gift I absolutely must get in the mail. Normally, Theo comes with me, but he’s having a bad day. I don’t like to leave him alone. He becomes confused and angry, and I’m afraid he might hurt himself or do something foolish. If I get you two settled, would you be all right alone with him for twenty minutes?”
“Take your time,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”
As she had before, Myra set the tea tray on the table. She filled our cups, excused herself, and slipped away. As soon as the door closed behind her, Theo smiled, removed the nesting doll from his pocket, and began the game he’d played the day he found them in my purse. He balanced the mother doll on his palm, said “I have a secret” in a light feminine voice, then opened the doll and produced the identical but smaller doll inside her. He repeated the sequence, pronouncing the words “I have a secret” in an increasingly high-pitched voice until he came to the last doll, the baby doll that could not be opened. “I am the secret,” he said in a tiny, squeaky, child’s voice.
With great care, Theo placed the nesting dolls on the table in front of him, arranging them according to size; then he extended a slender forefinger and, smiling, stroked the shiny painted head of each doll in turn. He picked up the smallest doll, cradled it in his palm, and then raised his eyes to look at me. “This is the baby,” he said. His brow furrowed and he regarded me with suspicion. “You have a baby,” he said.
“No,” I said. “But there was a baby at my house, the day you visited. You brought me a package. Remember? Then you sang to the baby.”
His eyes met mine. They had seemed opaque, but suddenly they cleared. “Was it your baby?”
“No.” I touched his hand. “Theo, it was your baby. Your grandson. That’s what I came to tell you today.”
He looked at the wooden doll in his hand. “This is the baby,” he said. His finger moved back and forth across the nesting dolls. One of these is his mama,” he said. “But which one?”
I took his hand in mine and moved it back to the doll the baby doll had been inside. “This is the mama,” I said. Then I moved my finger to the larger doll next to it. “This is the grandmother. Think of this as Delia – Delia Margolis. She clerked for you many years ago. Do you remember Delia?”
Theo’s brown eyes were confused. He moved his finger back to the smaller doll, the doll that contained the baby. “This is the mama.”
“I have a picture of Delia’s daughter,” I said. “Would you like to see it?”
I took the Christmas card Alwyn had given me and handed it to Theo. I started to identify Abby, but he seemed to recognize her. “That’s my girl,” he said, and there was rapture in his voice.
I didn’t understand, but I seized the moment. “That’s right,” I said. “That’s your daughter.”
He grabbed the photo and looked at me angrily. “Not my daughter. My girl. My clever girl.” He turned his eyes back to the photograph.
“She looks very much like her mother,” I said. “It’s easy to make a mistake. But this is Delia’s daughter. The daughter you and Delia had together.”
He looked at me angrily. “No,” he said. He stood abruptly and began pacing the room, the card still in his hand. Finally, he stopped at a magazine rack. He took out a magazine, slid the card between its pages, and replaced it in the rack. He sighed heavily, like a man who had completed a complex and onerous task; then his eyes lit on the nesting dolls, and he hurried to place them back inside one another again. When finally they were all safely inside the mother doll, he slid the doll into his pocket and patted it contentedly. “My girl,” he said. “My clever girl.”
When Myra returned, Theo and I had finished our tea and were sitting silently. He didn’t look up when his wife entered the apartment. Myra took off her coat and scarf, then came over and handed Theo a paper bag from a coffee house. He tore it open with boyish impatience.
“Biscotti,” Myra said. “Theo’s mad for them. I think they taste like cardboard, but when we’re out on a walk, his feet always lead us to a shop that sells them.” Her husband dunked a biscotto greedily in his tea, and Myra smiled. “I try to indulge him in his small pleasures.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” I said.
Myra’s mouth curved in a half-smile. “Wisdom comes from loss,” she said. “It takes a wise man to realize that when he’s lost everything else, his wife may have to be enough.”
I stood. “Myra, could I speak to you for a moment? Privately?”
Myra signalled her understanding with a nod and walked me to the door of her study. We both glanced at Theo. His attention was fixed on his snack, but we kept our voices low. “I take it this isn’t about the project,” Myra
