Before he could get a word in, she planted a kiss on his cheek and ushered him inside, but the moment the door closed, Pastel barreled down the hall shrilly yapping at the intruder. Felipe rolled his eyes at the angry Pomeranian snarling and growling at his feet. When he tried to pet her, Pastel bit the hem of his trouser leg and shook it like a dead rat. For a dog that looked like a fox mated with a loaf of bread, she was thoroughly convinced she could take Felipe down. Snatching the little monster off the floor, the dog immediately quieted with a snort. As Felipe pet Pastel and swept his gaze over the familiar foyer, his stomach clenched.
The wallpaper mural of a lush, fantasy forest dotted with tropical birds and animals still hovered above the white wainscoting, and the coatrack still hid the dent in the plaster where a ten year old Teresa hit the wall with a fireplace poker playing knight. Yet the house felt different. There was a strangeness to it that disconcerted him. Louisa and Agatha didn’t seem to be bothered by it, so Felipe kept the feeling to himself. It was at least partially his house, after all. He had helped pick out the furniture and hang the paintings. Some of his clothing hung in the wardrobe upstairs in the room overlooking the street that had been his when they had tried harder to pretend they were a couple. Over the past two years though, he found it more and more difficult to stay each time he returned to the city. The quiet without Teresa was deafening.
“Is Louisa in?” he asked, his mind still spinning as Agatha managed to unwind his scarf and free him of his coat while he clutched the panting dog to his chest with one arm.
“Oh, yes. She’s in the conservatory. Lou!” she called. “Felipe is home!”
He heard the flap of slipper soles on the parquet floor before he saw her. Releasing a wiggling Pastel, Felipe straightened to find Louisa at the end of the hall in a peacock blue dressing gown with her straight, dark hair hanging loose far past her shoulders. Unlike her partner, she approached him slowly with a smile and a soft peck on each cheek. While he and Agatha were nearly the same height, and neither exceptionally tall, they always looked like giants beside Louisa’s short but shapely frame. Pulling back from him, her gaze caught on the crow’s feet growing at the corners of his eyes and the dark circles accumulating beneath them. They had known each other far too long for her not to notice.
“Cariño, you look exhausted. Must you let them run you ragged? Come, we were just about to have tea and cake.”
Felipe followed them into the back of the house where the plaster walls gave way to a ceiling of glass and Agatha’s menagerie of plants. Pots filled with maidenhair ferns and majestic palms lined the perimeter, but the star was Agatha’s citrus tree, which she had nurtured until it nearly reached the ceiling and filled the room with its syrupy scent even in winter. Lying on her back snoring on a pillow between pots was their other Pomeranian, Kuchen, who Felipe always thought looked more like burnt toast than cake. Kuchen opened one eye as Pastel rushed in panting and spinning after her owner. With a quelling noise from Louisa, Pastel harumphed and sat on her sleeping sister.
In the center of the room stood an iron garden table with two chairs that Felipe hadn’t remembered being there when he left on his last assignment. Before he could say he would stand, Agatha appeared with one of the dining chairs and wedged it into the remaining space not occupied by ferns or dogs. The maid who arrived with the tea and cake looked as surprised to see him as Pastel was. He couldn’t blame her. He imagined there were never very many men in the house. Sandwiched between Agatha and Louisa with their expectant gazes turned upon him, Felipe swallowed hard. These were the people who loved him, he reminded himself. Agatha and Louisa knew him better than anyone, they had shared decades of secrets between them as well as a child, and he didn’t need to maintain a façade here. But he couldn’t let it down.
Couldn’t let them down.
“So how have you been? I got all your letters, but they never feel like enough,” Felipe said brightly.
“We’re as boring as we always are.” Louisa shrugged and stirred her tea. “Teresa brought me a few of her latest prints and sketches when she came home for Christmas. Remind me to show them to you before you go.”
“They’re quite impressive. She really has an eye for design. She’s been working on a series of wallpapers that are botanical, almost anatomical. Her teacher thinks they might be a tad specific for a department store or catalog, but I quite like them. Let me grab them.”
Agatha dashed out of the room followed by Pastel only to return a moment later with an album overstuffed with paper. A grin crossed Felipe’s lips as she handed him their daughter’s portfolio. From the earliest days of Teresa’s childhood, Agatha had managed to salvage a few pieces from each year of Teresa’s life. Felipe knew he shouldn’t flip through the first half, lest he spend his entire visit wrapped up in memories. Pulling out the untethered pieces at the bottom of the pile, his eye traced over drawings of women in beautiful dresses, artistic nudes gracefully draped over a couch, an uncharacteristically sweet looking portrait of Pastel, what appeared to be the beginnings of an advertisement for soup, and then, he found the wallpaper. The designs were stark in their contrasts. A jewel toned filigree type pattern looping back on itself like vines or ironwork covered one page while the next held a bat rendered in far more detail than he thought possible in a woodblock. The next few pages were moths, leaves, and bark in repeats that would allow them to create a paper forest on a wall. A lump formed in his throat as he carefully tapped the papers together and returned them to the book.
“Well, we certainly know where she got her talent from,” he said, hoping Louisa didn’t notice the thickness in his voice or the moisture in his eyes. “And how have your artistic endeavors been, Agatha?”
Louisa snorted as she took a sip of tea. “She’s been trying to convince me to sit for her again.”
“Why do you torture yourself? We all know Louisa can’t sit still for more than five minutes at a time.”
“It isn’t her moving that’s the problem. She always looks cross. In every sketch, she looks ready to throttle the viewer.”
A laugh escaped his lips at Louisa’s exasperated expression. “She can’t help it. That’s just her face.”
Pulling the cushion from under her bottom, Louisa playfully whacked Felipe and stuck it underneath her before he could retaliate. A low growl came from Pastel’s throat, but she quieted when Felipe scooped her up for cuddles. For the first time in days, Felipe felt like he could breathe freely again.
“How’s it going at the gallery?”
“Splendid, actually. We just wrapped up our last batch of contemporary artists, a group from Germany, very avant-garde. We got more than enough publicity when Comstock’s crowd came to complain. Now, we’re hosting some decorative objects from the Renaissance and Late Middle Ages. Books, stained glass, furniture, the like. Louisa thought we needed a little contrast after an exhibit that might not be to everyone’s tastes. You should come by next week. I’ll give you a personal tour.”
“I’d like that. Oh, I almost forgot.” With an overly wide grin, he pulled the forgotten boxes from his pocket and handed one to each woman. “I came bearing gifts.”
For Agatha, he selected a brooch of irises in the art nouveau style she so admired, and for Louisa a comb for her hair in a similar style. He hoped the brooch and comb would be something they could wear together to match without drawing too much attention. Agatha’s expression brightened more, if that was possible, and she immediately affixed it to the front of her bodice, even if it was a little fancy for a morning dress peppered with dog fur.
Louisa studied the comb for a long moment, her fingers lightly tracing its etched surface as her gaze softened. “Felipe, you didn’t have to get us anything. Having you back home is enough. Should we have your room made up?”
When he didn’t reply, Louisa released a heavy sigh and dropped the comb back in its box. “You aren’t staying.”
“But I thought you said you were back in town,” Agatha added.
“I am, but I can’t stay. I’m still working on a case. It just happens to be local.”
“Felipe.”
“Louisa.” He put Pastel on the floor and swatted the orange hair from his jacket in an attempt to pointedly ignore Louisa’s gaze skewering him to the chair. “You know how it is.”
“Do I? You’ve been gone for almost six months, Felipe. When you were away for Christmas, I thought you would at least get some time off after. That way, we could all go up to visit Teresa together, so you could make it up to her. Maybe make a holiday of it.”
