“All right.” Her mother waved a hand towards the hall leading to the apartment’s three bedrooms. “Do you mind using the littlebedroom? I haven’t made the bed up yet, but I’ve turned your old bedroom into a home studio.”
Even though she had studio space in the city’s South End. “No problem,” Lucy said, and went in search of sheets.
It was too late to call Alex, but she thought about it. Then she thought about calling Juliet, and realized that was whom she really wanted to speak to. Before she could overthink it, Lucy dialed Tarn House on her cell phone, only to have it ring and ring without anyone picking up. It was the middle of the night there, and she knew Juliet was probably in bed. She shouldn’t have called; she might have disturbed the guests. But she’d really, really wanted to talk to her sister.
She lay down on the narrow cot bed in the third bedroom that Fiona used for storage. Boxes were piled all around and canvases lay stacked against a wall. The room smelled both musty and of turpentine, and was hardly the most pleasant accommodation in what was otherwise a luxury apartment. But of course her mother needed her home studio.
The next morning Lucy woke gritty-eyed and groggy; her mother was in the kitchen, drinking a protein shake.
“I’m packed,” she said. “We should leave by eleven.”
“Okay.”
Lucy sank into a kitchen chair and glanced at her mother; despite the brisk airiness, she looked a little thinner, a little more fragile, her hair more white than Lucy remembered, although she was only fifty-eight. Old age and death would come for Fiona Bagshaw, tour de force though she was, just as they came for everyone.
“How are you feeling about the operation?” she asked, and Fiona gave a twitchy little shrug.
“Well, you know. I’d rather not go through it, but . . .” She trailed off, her expression distant, and for a moment Lucy could see beneath the brisk confidence to a surprising vulnerabilityand fear. “I do want to thank you for coming back to Boston,” she said, still not meeting Lucy’s gaze. “I know after everything that happened with that little gallery showing, you probably didn’t want to.”
Ah, there was the familiar sting. “Little gallery showing, Mum?” Lucy repeated. “It might have seemed little to you, but it was a lot more than that to me.”
“Oh,Lucy.” Her mother drained her protein shake. “You always take everything so seriously.”
“And you don’t?” Lucy retorted. “You take your own art pretty seriously.” A sudden surge of anger overwhelmed her, surprising her with its fierceness, especially considering the circumstances. Her mother was about to go in for surgery; surely she could let slide a few barbed remarks. “The way you drone on about boobs and penises makes me think you take it very seriously indeed.”
Fiona’s mouth tightened, just as it always did, just as Juliet’s used to. “That’s because my art is serious, Lucy, even if you never seemed to think so. Or perhaps you’re just jealous.”
“Jealous?”Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “I’ve never been jealous of you, Mum, or your success. And although you may find this hard to believe, I wanted you to come to my showing because you’re my mother, not because you’re famous Fiona Bagshaw, theartist.” She turned away abruptly, hating that her mother still had the power to hurt her.
Fiona didn’t answer for a moment. Lucy could hear the ragged tear of her own breathing and she closed her eyes, wishing that her mother didn’t affect her this way. She was too tired and fragile for this now.
“I haven’t proved to be much good at that role,” Fiona finally said. “I think I’m better as Fiona Bagshaw the Artist than Fiona Bagshaw the Mother.”
Lucy stared at her mother with her mouth agape. “I didn’t know you even tried,” she said, shocked at the spite in her voice and yet knowing she meant it utterly.
“What did you want me to do, Lucy?” Fiona asked, eyebrows raised. “Wear a frilly apron and bake cookies for you and your friends? I was never going to be that sort of woman.”
“You don’t have to resort to stereotypes,” Lucy protested. “But as it happens, yes, baking cookies or even buying them from the store would have been nice.Thinkingabout me once in a while—”
“Do you really believe I never thought about you? Never cared about you?”
Lucy considered the handful of happy memories she had of her mother, of those rare times when she’d felt as if Fiona actually cared. They’d been sofleeting. Her mother would give her a moment’s attention when she’d been a child and then move on. “‘Never’ is a strong word,” she said. “But it’s pretty close to how I feel.”
“I admit I haven’t been the best mother,” Fiona said after a pause. “But I’m not completely thoughtless. I chose not to go to your gallery showing for your sake, Lucy, not mine.”
“So you’ve said. But I really don’t see how writing that awful editorial was doing me afavor.”
“I know it probably didn’t look that way—”
“That,” Lucy interjected, “is agrossunderstatement.”
“I wanted you to succeed on your own terms, Lucy, like I did. Trust me, it means so much more—”
“Fine. I get that. And actually, Mum, I wanted that too. I never traded on your fame. I usually tried to avoid it.”
“I know,” Fiona said.
“You could have just said you weren’t going to go,” Lucy said, her voice cracking. “Privately.Why did you have to go and write an editorial about it? And trash my paintings in a nationalnewspaper? You were making it as hard to succeed as possible, but I don’t even care about that. It was the fact that mymotherwas treating me that way that hurt so much, not that the famous Fiona Bagshaw didn’t like my work.”
