“Do you ever wish that Declan hadn’t been a part of your life? That he’d never been born? The pain of losing him…?”
“No.” Spencer’s eyes strayed to the stuffed dog. “I think he was meant to be a part of my life, even if it was only for a short time. I wouldn’t want to have to give that experience up, even if it was painful.”
His face was still blank of any emotion, but Spencer knew that was just a mask that Spencer showed the world. Or maybe it wasn’t something he hid behind, but that he was unable to express the emotion he felt. Zachary could feel it there between them. The grief. The anger. The despair.
“Yeah.” Zachary sighed and turned the page on his notepad to a clean sheet. “I will have more questions for you later. I guess I should meet your wife now.”
“Of course. We’ll help in any way we can.”
They both stood, and Zachary waited for Spencer to take him to wherever his wife was waiting. Spencer’s mouth twitched, and he didn’t come out from behind his desk.
“Has Molly told you about Isabella? What to expect?”
“No, not really, just that she’s going through a difficult time. That Molly is concerned for her mental or emotional state.”
Spencer didn’t offer up any further explanation.
“Anything you could tell me that might help this go more smoothly?” Zachary suggested.
“You will find her… eccentric. Or maybe you won’t. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She doesn’t have cleanliness compulsions. She may act happy and cheerful, but…” Spencer shifted his feet. “That’s her TV persona. She’ll put it on if she’s not comfortable with you.”
Zachary nodded, understanding. “Okay. Thanks.”
They made the walk to Isabella’s office in silence. Zachary kept his eyes open, looking around the rest of the house as much as he could. It was almost clinically tidy.
Then they walked into Isabella’s studio. That was where the neatness ended.
Spencer took him up to the doorway and didn’t enter. Zachary could understand why. For someone with compulsions for cleaning and straightening, even having such a room in his house must have been painful. Certainly, he wouldn’t want to spend any time there.
Zachary knocked on the open door, not wanting to just barge in on Isabella. She stood in the middle of the chaos, in front of an easel with some abstract daubing, her back to the door. She turned around, and Zachary saw the face that was so familiar from The Happy Artist commercials and advertisements. There was one brief, unguarded moment when she looked at him, her face hollow and lined before she realized she was facing a stranger and put on the mask Spencer had warned him about. She smiled brightly, and a fan of laugh lines replaced all the deep frown lines.
“Hello,” she greeted, “come in, come in.”
She looked around her and found a chair stacked with canvases. She moved the paintings to the side, leaning them against the wall.
“There you go. Make yourself at home.”
Zachary sat down but wasn’t exactly comfortable. There were canvases and art materials covering every surface, including most of the floor. All manner of brushes, paints, and bottles filled a couple of bookcases. There were tables with a space cleared in the middle for charcoal and pastel sketches. He had the uncomfortable sensation that everything stacked around him was going to fall down in a landslide and bury him.
Isabella herself was not untidy. She had on black pants and a flowing tunic-shirt with several layers of jewelry. Her long, dark hair had been gathered into a ponytail to keep it out of her face. When she appeared on TV, it was often done up in intricate braiding or decorated buns, a nod to the fact that her back was often to the cameras as she worked. Giving the audience something to look at besides her paint work.
“My name is Zachary. From Goldman Investigations.”
“I know who you are,” she said dismissively, flipping a hand at him as she studied her canvas. “And I know why my mother hired you.”
“You know I’m here about Declan’s accident.”
“Of course.” She looked away from her painting and gazed at him briefly, brows raised.
“I don’t want to waste your time with small talk. I know this must be very difficult for you.”
“Do you want to know why my mother is so worried about me?”
“Sure.”
There was a stool nearby for her to sit on while she painted. She dragged it closer to Zachary and sat down. It was higher than Zachary’s chair, so he was forced to look up at her.
“The network says I have to wear long sleeves on the air now,” Isabella said, pulling up the right-hand sleeve of her tunic.
Molly’s concern and the words prefacing the gesture made Zachary expect to see fresh cut marks. There was no sign of self-mutilation or a suicide attempt. Instead, he was looking at the tattoo of a boy’s face, with the name Declan under it.
“Do you really think my viewers would find that so offensive?” Isabella demanded. “Why is it a bad thing that I tattooed my son into my skin?”
“Uh, no…” Zachary was caught by surprise and had no idea what to say to this. “No, I think… it’s sweet.”
“He came from my body, and now he’s returned to it,” she went on, her voice loud and forceful. “The tattoo artist mixed a small amount of his ashes into the tattoo ink. His body has returned to me and will always be with me.”
Zachary did find that surprising, and maybe a little morbid. He didn’t know regular people did that kind of thing. In prison, all kinds of materials were burned to make DIY tattoo ink, but he didn’t know anyone would mix cremains in with the ink. Was it common, and he’d just never paid attention before?
“My son is always with me,” Isabella had continued, while Zachary was lost in his own thoughts. “I don’t ever want him to leave me
