An Illustrated Death (4 page)

“I’m so sorry.” I wanted to put my arm around her, hug her shoulder, let her know how much I felt for her. Yet I sensed she didn’t want to be touched.

She pulled a tissue from her pants pocket and pressed it against one eye, then the other, the way you would try and keep a wound from bleeding. “You know my book of poems? I’m writing it in her memory. For her. I don’t usually write kids’ poems, but—it’s all that keeps me going these days.” She gave a sniff, loud in the stillness, and touched the tissue to her nose. “Nights are the worst. I’ll sit and go over and over it trying to figure out
how
it could have happened. Morgan hated water, we could never get her near the pool. I tried to put a bathing suit on her once and she screamed. It was as if she knew something terrible would happen.”

Her words stirred an answering sadness in me, rattled the doorknob to a room that had been locked as firmly as Nate Erikson’s studio, but for a lot longer.

“Do they think your father had a heart attack?”

“No. Nothing like that showed up in the autopsy. He was sixty-seven, but he had a whole health regimen, lifting weights and swimming laps before anyone else was up. Morgan liked to get up early too. Aunt Gretchen would take her for a walk or let her help in the kitchen.”

Aunt Gretchen was a busy lady.

Bianca put the tissue back in her pocket. “The weirdest thing was this bruise on my father’s forehead.” She was more composed now, not talking about her child. “It was horrible the way—while we were waiting for the ambulance and Claude was trying to give him CPR—this dark mark started to spread across his forehead. It was like something supernatural, like a photo developing. It almost looked like a
cross.
” Bianca shivered in a breeze that had kicked up out of nowhere.

The mark of Cain.
Or ashes from Ash Wednesday, the symbol of repentance and loss. “How did the police explain that?”

“They didn’t. I mean, they said he must have crashed into the side of the pool. That something distracted him, maybe Morgan falling in.”

We had reached the bottom of the hill and she turned toward her cottage. “I didn’t mean to dump all this on you, you don’t even know me. It happened, it’s over, and I need to accept what happened. Forget what I said.”

But as with anything you are ordered not to think about, I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

M
ONDAY NIGHTS WERE
reserved for talking to my children. Although I received daily e-mails from Hannah, they were usually photographs of kittens in cute clothes looking mutinous or affirmations about the power of women friends. I was instructed to send those to
my
twelve best friends, but I deleted them instead. Jason in Santa Fe didn’t have a computer, and Jane’s Facebook updates were mostly photographs of her with friends in upscale bars. It was only by talking to them directly that I could find out how their lives were going.

I didn’t text or tweet.

I have to admit there have been a few Monday nights when I was relieved to reach Jason’s answering machine instead of Jason himself. He was always desperate for money, more money than I could give him. Since he had dropped out of Pratt Institute and moved to Santa Fe, his quest for the meaning of life hadn’t taught him the secret of how to attract cash. He could expect no financial help from Colin, who was still furious with him.

“He won’t find the meaning of life working in a tortilla factory,” Colin fumed. “That’s what college is for.”

This was no doubt true, but unlike his sisters, Jason had never cracked the secret of succeeding in school either. He had asked incisive questions in class, but by the time the answer came he was thinking about something else.

Tonight though there was a lot of “Mom, guess what!?”

“I’ve got a job building an adobe house.” (Jason.)

“You won’t believe who I met at this sports club!” (Jane.)

“Dr. Jonas thinks I’ve got a good chance of getting into the vet school.” (Hannah.)

Because I had been so young when the children were born or maybe because there had been so many so soon, I had never worked out what they should be when they grew up. I wanted them to be good people and happy with their lives, but I had no blueprints for them. On the other hand, maybe I hadn’t needed to decide their life paths. Colin had plans for all of us.

Buoyed by their successes tonight, I stayed up filling book orders until way past midnight.

T
UESDAY MORNING
I
stopped at Qwikjava and bought an insulated cup and a chicken wrap. As intriguing as the Eriksons were, I wasn’t planning to eat with them every day.

The room was still stuffy when I unlocked the padlock and stepped inside, and I almost left the door open to air the studio out. But what if Eve Erikson decided to go for a stroll around the property, and found the door ajar? It would be a quick end to my book assessing career. I shut myself in once more.

Today the studio felt like less of a shrine. I was anxious to get to the books illustrated by Nate Erikson’s forerunners, N. C. Wyeth, Rockwell Kent, and Howard Pyle, and see if any had been signed. But that was like eating dessert first. I made myself go upstairs and bring down the
Complete Sherlock Holmes
set that Nate had illustrated.

Considering that Conan Doyle’s stories were dominated by the same two men, Nate’s illustrations were as dramatic and varied as I had hoped. I especially admired the shadow of the ape outside the window terrifying the young woman in her bed, and the lurid settings of the opium dens. What an imagination Nate had had! When I checked the valuation, I discovered that, as a complete set, the Holmes books were worth several thousand dollars.

Still, it became tedious examining identical books in German, Swedish, Japanese, and a dozen other languages, checking each one for variations. By noon I was sick of the hound who hadn’t bothered to bark in the night.

And then I came across a five-by-seven photograph, stuck in a copy of
Der Hund von Baskerville
. The picture showed the same fair-haired man as in the portrait in the dining room, but older, his smile nuanced. He was holding on to a squirming child of three or four with tangled dark hair who I assumed was Morgan. Restraining her, actually. She was pulling away, half off his lap, looking as if she were impatient to jump down and make someone’s life miserable.

An interesting photo, though not one you would frame. I stared at it, considering what I should do with it. If I returned it to
Der Hund von Baskerville
, the photo ran the risk of being undiscovered if the books were ever sold. I had a collection of things left behind in the books I bought, from dental appointment reminders to ticket stubs and love letters. This ephemera was probably worthless, but I couldn’t bring myself to discard this evidence of once-lived lives.

The only items I did discard were reviews that people had tucked inside books, a major bookseller annoyance. Cheap newsprint turned brown and stained the inside covers. Taped-in reviews left a yellow bruise where the tape had worn away. I was happy not to find any of these in Nate’s books.

I looked at the photo of Nate and Morgan again. It felt presumptuous to prop it up on the studio table. Instead I left it lying flat.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

I
WAS ABOUT
to get out my chicken wrap—I usually eat and work at the same time —when there was a knock on the door and Bianca came in. “Lunchtime,” she said warmly. “Everyone was so happy to meet you yesterday. They were saying at breakfast how interesting you are.”

Really? Nate Erikson’s family found me interesting? I tried to remember what we had talked about. I knew I couldn’t skip lunch with them after that. Still, tomorrow I would leave the grounds well before 1 p.m. There was no reason to wear out my welcome.

Mama wasn’t at the table. As we were sitting down, her aide, whom Claude called Bessie, stepped into the dining room to say that Miss Eve was feeling poorly and would have a tray in her room.

There was still the family toast to the patriarch, but with a sense of giddiness, as if the teacher had stepped out of the room. Only Rosa stared wide-eyed at the flowered urn as if imagining her father inside.

“Are you coming to the show Saturday night?” Puck asked me, as he spooned homemade applesauce onto his plate.

“What show?”

“What show?” He raised his eyebrows at his sister. “Shame on you, Bianca.”

I could feel her bristle. “I assumed she knew about it. Anyway,” she explained to me, “Guild Hall is honoring the family and our contribution to the East End in a memorial to Dad. There’s an exhibition of Dad’s and Regan’s paintings, and a concert of Puck’s music Saturday night. That’s by invitation only, of course. But starting Monday, the paintings will be open to the public.”

“But I want Delhi at the
concert
,” Puck said. “Honestly, Bianca, you’re thick as a board sometimes. Why not have someone there who actually looks like an artist, who isn’t
just
eye candy. There’ll be enough of that and I still have a few tickets left for friends.” He winked at me. “Truth is, most of my friends wouldn’t be caught dead in black tie.”

“I’d love to come.” I smiled back. I didn’t know if he was calling me eye candy or not, but at least he’d remembered my name.

Bianca rallied. “Puck, you’ll need to give her two tickets. So she can bring Colin Fitzhugh.”

What was she talking about? I didn’t mind bringing a guest—but Colin? We hadn’t been out together in ages. Inviting him would make him think I was trying to lure him back.
He
had left
me.
It wasn’t that there was tension between us, we just knew how to make each other crazy. After four children and twenty-five years, we had become experts.

“Who’s Regan?” I asked, to forestall making a commitment about Colin.

“You don’t know who Regan is either?” Puck feigned surprise. “Bianca didn’t tell you about the prodigal daughter?”

“Oh, knock it off, Puck.” Bianca’s cheeks glowed red. “It’s no big mystery. Regan lives upstate in Columbia County. She’s an artist, that’s all.”

“I don’t know why they included her in the show,” Claude complained. “Her work is nowhere near as good as Dad’s.”

“She’s an Erikson. And she’s gotten good press and sales.”

“At least she’s not staying at the house,” Lynn said as if to pacify her husband.

I was dying to know why everyone hated her.

G
RETCHEN SERVED A
homemade blueberry cobbler and ice cream, of which Puck and Rosa had seconds, then we pushed back our chairs to leave.

Rosa, who had been silent for the meal, suddenly said to me, “I’m an artist too.”

“Really?”

“Would you like to see?” Today she was wearing a loose-fitting blue shirt the same color as Nate Erikson’s smock in the painting.

“Sure.”

“No, you don’t.” Claude looked up from checking the pens in his pocket. “She paints on
china.
”

“That’s okay.”

Wrong answer.
He angrily jammed his chair into the table, and bent his head to whisper something to Lynn. She nodded gravely and gave me a quick look.

Was Rosa that bad an artist? Even if her painting on china was a sentimental horror, her amateurism hardly tarnished the reputation of the Erikson family.

Lynn joined us on the side of the house. “Can I come too?” she asked Rosa in her let’s-be-friends way.

“No! You’re not invited.” Rosa grabbed my arm as if we were in the middle of a kindergarten brawl and pulled me down the hill toward the second white chalet.

I looked back and saw Lynn watching, but she didn’t try to follow us.

As we got closer to Rosa’s chalet, I saw that the lawn was filled with outdoor furniture and rusted barbecues. A squadron of chipped dwarfs and a skunk protected Snow White. It was my worst nightmare of a yard sale, the kind I would drive past before anything could catch my eye. The books at such sales were rarely worth it.

I inched my way up the porch steps sideways, between flower urns. Rosa pushed the door back as far as she could. “Do you think things have feelings?”

“You mean like, if you put a chair out in the trash, it would feel rejected?” I asked.

“Yes! You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to rescue.” Suddenly her words were spilling out, as if she had found an ally. “Look at this.” She touched the back of her hand to a carved wooden étagère crammed with porcelain miniatures. Since the shelves were mirrored behind, the effect was dizzying. “Someone was
giving
this away on Craigslist. They wouldn’t even take money for it.”

I noticed that a few of the carved pieces were missing and the mirror in back was cracked in several places.

At the end of the hall was the kitchen, which she had turned into an art studio. Dozens of delicate bottles were lined up in color order, and stacks of white plates had a table all to themselves. The table blocked the back door. I could smell turpentine and other solvents, and noticed a kiln on the counter beside the stove. Whatever she made, she was serious about her work. The pressure to be creative in this family had to be enormous and even if Rosa painted the usual things on plates, flowers and Christmas decorations, I gave her credit for trying.

“I do the master design and the manufacturer copies it. Unless I’m selling it by itself as an original to a gallery.”

Can’t blame her for dreaming.

“This is my latest series.” Her voice was shy. “It’s called ‘Feeding the Hungry.’ ”

Touching my arm as lightly as a whisper, she brought me to the back of the kitchen to where a series of dinner plates were displayed on a harvest table. But instead of cornucopias of fruits and vegetables, this was another kind of raw food. Even though they were black images on a white background, there was something too real about the hamburger meat twisted into brains and the bumpy skin on chicken breasts. The meats were accompanied by potatoes still in their jackets, and uncooked broccoli and asparagus stalks.

I was floored. Where did this originality and humor come from? “These are wonderful! How long have you been making them?”

“A long time. I won a prize for ‘Trash.’ ” She reached for a large black album on another table.

I hoped I wouldn’t be looking at maggots and gnawed bones, but these designs showed crumpled Doritos bags and crushed soda cans turned into art. A stack of batteries formed an Egyptian pyramid. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, then laughed out loud.

Rosa’s open face beamed. “I knew you’d get it. Galleries always want more of these than I can make.”

“I can see why. I’d love a set. Do you work as Rosa Erikson?”

Her mouth twisted. “I’d never use
Erikson
.”

She didn’t tell me what name she did use as she led me back to the front door.