“I do not pose naked all day for a man, Mom.” I paused, taking a breath, as I paced around the studio.
Phillipe went to town when I received the call. I was starting to wish I had gone with him.
“Mary Beth called me today, and she told me she had read all about you and theBlind Vision Collection.Chantel, honestly, the paintings are obscene.”
Shaking my head, I tried to remind myself that she’s my mother, so of course seeing those pictures shocked her. The poses were intimate. They were nude. Her reaction was normal, especially coming from a parental point of view.
“He is using you, Chantel.”
Thatwas not parental. That was cruel and unfair.
“He has a name. It is Phillipe. You met him once, but apparently you can’t even be bothered to remember that. He is not using me, Mom, and even if he was, maybe I want to be used.”
“Chantel!”
“What?” I demanded. I was angered on behalf of the man who so lovingly touched me and looked after me. I was angered for a man who was not here to defend himself. “He has never done anything but love me, Mom.”
She lowered her voice, and I could tell that she was either trying to keep herself under control or trying to hide the conversation from someone.
“What he has done is take your gift—your love of music—and destroyed it. He’s defiled it and you, Chantel Rosenberg. The fact that your uncle allowed you to meet him in the first place and that you have allowed all of this is abhorrent.” Her breath heaved through the phone until she finally let out a disgusted breath. “Well, obviously he’s manipulated you.”
I gripped the phone tightly. “Phillipe has not in any way manipulated me, Mother. He asked, and I said yes. It was nothing more and nothing less.”
There was a frosty silence before she said, “What he has done is take a vulnerable girl who was lost and seduced her intoa relationship that is disgusting and depraved. It should be a crime.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I took a breath. Almost as though my brain understood what I wanted to say better than my heart, I told her calmly, “I am a woman. I am a grown woman who fell in love with a man. I was never lost, Mother, but if I was, I am glad that Phillipe is the one who found me. There is nothing sick, nothing depraved, and certainly nothing criminal about the way we love one another. It is not my fault that when you look at the images, you see something unhealthy and disgusting. That’s all on you. Until you can understand that, do not call me again.”
After I hung up, the tears came.
I wasn’t crying for my mother or for myself. I was crying for the man I loved. I was crying at the realization that anyone could think he was anything other than good.
Phillipe suspected he would find her down by the river.
As he steps around the final small bend, he spots her. She is close to the edge with a tiny light pointing at the journal she holds in her lap. The sun set around fifteen minutes earlier, and as she switches off the light, he knows that she is done for the moment. He is uncertain what she is going to do next, and she surprises him when she places the book beside her on the grass and lies down.
He closes his eyes, and images start to flash before him—the sun, the rain, and then the night.
Shaking his head to dislodge the thoughts, he steps forward. As the leaves crunch beneath his feet, Gemma turns, pinning him with her stare.
“You scared me,” she says quietly.
Phillipe understands that. Right now, Gemma is as consumed as he is. That’s what this place does. That’s whatshedid.
“I’m sorry.”
He follows her movements as she turns back to lie down again, staring up at the sky. Making himself walk over to where she is, he sits and looks down at her in her silence. When he realizes that he wants to reach out and touch her, he makes himself look away. Instead, he focuses on one of the trees on the opposite side of the river, where he always sawherstanding.
“Will you tell me?” Gemma asks softly.
Taking a deep breath, he feels anguish splintering through his chest. He clutches the sweater covering his heart as he feels tears gather in his eyes. Swallowing deeply, he tries to form the words but finds nothing will come.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Compassionate eyes hold his while she reaches across them both, placing her other hand against his heart.
“Will you try?”
I can feel his sorrow as if it is my own as I grip his hand tightly.
