Love Hurts (6 page)

Jilly’s outburst had thrown up an obstacle. How to get around it? Maybe it was unscalable.

“I’m sorry.” Jilly rocked back on her heels and studied Anna’s face. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”

Anna said nothing.

“It’s just …” Jilly ran her hands through her hair and dug her fingers into her scalp. “It’s just that I’m so tired of pretending.”

“Pretending? Who’s pretending? I thought we were always honest with each other. Last night was a shock, yes, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing okay. We don’t have to let her affect our lives.”

“Don’t you realize she never stopped affecting us? She’s been here all along. We’re a part of her no matter how much we pretend. How do I live with that?” The bleakness in Jilly’s face terrified Anna.

“How can I help you?”

“You can’t help me. You can’t help until you admit that you’re hurting just as much as I am.”

Anna didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. She studied Jilly until the light went out in her sister’s eyes and Jilly turned away.

Jilly went back to the fireplace and picked up more glass, making a small pile of it beside her. Anna couldn’t help but think it was just like their family. Shattered in so many pieces. Jilly kept her back toward Anna, her shoulders hunched around her ears. The stiffness in her spine felt like a reproach. Anna knew she’d failed her sister, but she didn’t know how to be what Jilly wanted. She wasn’t like her sister. Anna kept her emotions under lock and key. If she threw the door wide open ... She didn’t want to think about that.

Anna got up and found her purse by the door. Without a word, she left. The door closing behind her sounded final and she wondered if it would ever be open to her again.

Jilly picked up a large piece of glass and examined it. It was pale green with raised swirls. She drew the glass down her arm, applying very little pressure, yet the blood welled up from the cut, a line on her arm like a line in the sand. The bright red blood held her gaze and she stared at it, mesmerized. The same blood ran in Mamma’s veins that ran in Jilly’s and now Matthew’s. Their connection was one that nothing could break.
Sangue
, Mamma told her once,
sangue
was blood in Italian, but it meant so much more than just a physical thing. It was a covenant, or a curse.
Am I cursed?

She touched it with her finger, drew it to her mouth and tasted it. It had a repugnant copper taste. She wanted to spit it out, but swallowed instead. The blood they shared didn’t bind them together, she thought, it forced them apart. Even her sister, as close as they were, was pushed away by their blood, by the very memories they shared.

Again, Jilly drew the glass across her arm, intersecting the other line, watching the blood well up and begin to drip. She wished she could drain her blood and get a transfusion.
Would it take away my pain?
Would she become someone else, part of another bloodline? She wished it were so easy.

Jilly turned her head and caught sight of herself in the glass cover of the fireplace.
Who is that person?
She gripped the glass so hard her fingers stung. The girl in the glass had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. She hurt herself to try to take away the pain.
Who does something like that?
Jilly threw the piece of glass at her and turned away. She didn’t want to know anything more about her.

Hopelessness came over her and filtered through every vein, like tainted blood. Her limbs felt heavy, her neck unable to hold up her head. She’d been fooling herself. All this time she’d believed she’d moved on, forgotten Mamma and the things she’d done.
I lied.
Lying to myself is worse than lying to another person. If I can’t trust me, who can I trust?

Chapter 5

Jilly cleaned up the glass and tried to read a book, but she couldn’t relax. She decided to visit her favorite place, the art gallery, once Gregg was home to watch Matthew. No one but the evening clerk knew she went there. If anyone found out, she’d tell them it was for inspiration for her students. Jilly hadn’t told anyone, not even Anna, but not painting wasn’t a choice. She
couldn’t
paint.

She went to the gallery often, hoping to get her inspiration back. The paintings always soothed her spirit. She waited until after dinner and asked Gregg if he would watch Matthew. He said he didn’t mind, but the loneliness on his face made her hesitate. Should she stay home and focus on him, on them? The thought of taking on someone else’s pain was too much, so she fled the house.

The rain came in a deluge, so there was a good chance she’d be able to avoid the usual few tourists checking out the gallery while they stretched their legs. She didn’t know if she could handle seeing Mamma’s painting again, but thought she might
need
to see it.

When she entered the gallery, she pulled off her wet coat, shook it and hung it on the rack near the door. She smoothed back her damp hair and nodded at Mary, the gallery clerk seated behind the counter. Mary smiled back at her over the top of her novel. Jilly moved past her quickly, not wanting to give her a chance to strike up a conversation. She didn’t feel like speaking to anyone. She wanted to be alone with the paintings.

The painting
sat in the middle of the main room, and Jilly averted her gaze, not yet ready to look at it again. Instead, she moved toward the side room, where she always went.

When Jilly stepped through the doorway, she took a deep, calming breath. Just being in the room made her feel better, like all her favorite people surrounded her and not one of them judged. She stood in front of the first painting and let the colors seep in. Her eyes swam with tears as they did each time she stood in front of it. She didn’t know why. It was created by an anonymous painter, a scene of a field full of daisies with a dark, stormy sky overhead. It always filled her with deep emotion. Each time was different depending on her mood. Today, sadness overwhelmed her as she gazed at the daisies, struggling to stay upright as the wind blew and the storm gathered strength. To Jilly, it seemed that the flowers huddled together, trying to find warmth and protection from the forces around them. They looked delicate and insecure.

She stepped back, her arms wrapped around her body. She had often felt alone and unprotected as the storms of life raged, threatening to rend her limb from limb. She shuddered and moved on to the next painting.

This one had bright, almost garish, colors and today it seemed to Jilly to have a somewhat frantic quality about it, as though the painter tried to cover up something ugly with beautiful colors. The ugly thing seeped through at the cracks. The painter could paint layer upon layer of warm, comforting colors, but the foundation tainted the loveliness of the paint.

The futility of it all struck at her heart. She wondered why people tried so hard to make ugly things appear beautiful. Why did families try to cover up the past and tell lies about it, when the lies were as apparent as a familial nose or brow?

Jilly sank cross-legged to the floor and opened her oversized purse. She pulled out a pristine sketch pad and a new charcoal pencil. This she clutched in her hand as images formed in her mind. The images today were stark, straight lines and right angles. They were open mouths, screaming. But none of the figures had ears, so the screaming went on and on with nowhere for the sound to go. Her hand cramped as she squeezed the pencil tighter, the emotion building in her hand, desperately wanting to break free. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t. She forced her hand open and the pencil fell. The point broke off and skittered across the floor. Her vision blurred. A single tear dropped onto the paper, marring its perfect surface. Unable to stand the sight, Jilly put the paper and pencil away, their perfection gone.

She felt small and insignificant on the floor. She, the daughter of the great Catarina di Rossi, also had talent, or had at one time. Yet she couldn’t create. She hadn’t painted a stroke since Matthew’s birth other than the spider web in his bedroom. The longer she
didn’t
paint, the more she realized she
couldn’t
. The door to her creativity, what used to be her passion, was padlocked. She’d forgotten where she put the key.

Jilly climbed to her feet, stiff and unwieldy, her legs like marble. She wished they would sink deep down into the floor so she could never leave this place. She didn’t paint, but she loved being surrounded by paintings. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

She picked up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder as she moved back into the empty main room, hushed like a cathedral. Mamma’s painting had the place of honor, like the Madonna in the front of a shrine. This gallery had never housed such a celebrity.

Jilly circled the room three times, the painting metal to her internal magnet, yet she resisted. She still didn’t feel ready when she finally stepped in front of it. She could see Mary watching her out of the corner of her eye, but she blocked out everything but the canvas.

The pain came again, quick and sharp, just like the night before. This time she was prepared, and yet she still rocked back a bit from the onslaught. The painting was of herself and Anna when they were children—two little girls hand in hand, walking down a country road. They looked happy and carefree, expressions Jilly didn’t think either of them had ever owned. Or maybe they had.
Has the pain wiped out even the good memories? There had to be some.
Maybe it was Mamma’s hope that put those expressions there. She had obviously reached out to them by sending her painting here. She never released her work to any gallery but the one in Toronto. She ascribed to the recluse’s creed.
Hide it away and they will come from far and wide.
Mamma had always been very good at playing hard to get.

The little Anna pointed at something. Jilly followed the finger with her gaze, but saw nothing. And yet her heart stuttered.
It can’t be here in this painting, can it? The only one Mamma had ever painted of her us.

Jilly stepped back and then she saw it. The rage and jealousy boiled up at once, a confusing miasma. She clenched her fists and stared at the face. Of course it was there. It had to mar even this one painting she’d done as a tribute to her children. The tiny face in every one of Catarina di Rossi’s paintings. The one that Jilly instinctively knew had stolen Mamma’s ability to love her children as a mother should. She didn’t know anything about the child, and Mamma had never talked about it, one of the great mysteries of the art world.

Jilly whirled away from the painting, snatched her coat off the rack and stepped into the wet, dark evening. The weather kept perfect time with her emotions.

Chapter 6

The morning cooled Anna’s skin as she walked to work. Early summer weather was still cool in the mountains, but the sun would warm everything up soon enough. It had always been Anna’s favorite time of year, but never more than after she’d moved near the beautiful Cascade Mountains.

Despite the gorgeous scenery, Anna couldn’t stop thinking about the scene at Jilly’s house the day before. Tears came to her eyes at the thought that their relationship could be threatened. Anna didn’t know what she’d do without her sister. Jilly was her only family other than Rob and certainly more of a support system than her own husband. The only time she’d been this at odds with her sister was when Jilly had been at her worst cutting phase and ended up in the hospital. Jilly’d only been fourteen. Being cut off from Jilly didn’t just hurt; Anna feared the inability to watch over her volatile sister. She’d been Jilly’s guardian in so many ways. Mamma sometimes spent days maniacally painting and forgot she even had children. That’s when Anna would have to stop whatever plans she had to make sure her little sister would be adequately cared for. She sometimes wished she could be a normal teenager, but then felt guilty for her thoughts. She loved her little sister with all her heart. So when Jilly went through a deep depression and seemed constantly angry with her sister, Anna wondered why Jilly hadn’t been more grateful.

She still remembered the day she had to call 911. It imprinted on her memory like a prison tattoo. She wished she could ignore it, but it was too prominent, almost like it had been inked on the end of her nose.

Anna had grabbed the door knob just as Jillian pushed the door from the other side. “Stop, Jilly, wait!” she yelled in desperation. “I’m sorry!”

Jilly sobbed and pushed at the door, nearly closing it on Anna’s hand. “Go away and leave me alone. I hate you!”

Anna leaned against the door and spoke into the tiny crack. “What did I say? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Yes, you do.” Jilly’s voice wavered. “It’s always the same thing.”

“What is?” Anna shoved harder against the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“You always think you know what’s best for me, but you don’t. You’re not my mother.”

“That’s what this is about? I wanted you to change your clothes?” Hard as she tried, Anna couldn’t keep the disgust out of her tone and Jilly shrieked and tore the door open.

“Don’t talk to me that way. I’m not a baby!” Jilly stood in the doorway, her hands clenched and her face screwed up in fury.