“You know, it’s always been a secret pleasure of mine, painting,” he said. “But I never imagined anyone would want to see what I did.”
Marge gaped at him, then twisted around to look at Henrietta. “You must have known how good he was.”
Henrietta scrunched her hands into fists. Even after everything Larry had done to her through the years, she was speechless.
“We need to call someone,” Matthew went on. “A gallerist. Larry, there’s no reason that these paintings should be stuffed away in a closet like this. Honestly, I can’t believe I opened the door to find this. You weren’t going to show me. You were going to keep them hidden away!”
Larry grinned madly. “You’re being too kind.”
Matthew’s cheeks were red. “You’re being overly modest,” he said. “Let me take this one to my friend in Boulder. He’ll set something up for you right away.”
That night, after Matthew and Marge took their kids home and left Larry and Henrietta alone in their mountain cabin, Henrietta sat up in the kitchen and listened as Larry spoke to Matthew’s friend-of-a-friend on the phone: a gallerist who was interested in seeing his paintings. Henrietta felt as though her life was melting before her eyes. She remembered the innkeeper telling her that she could be anything she wanted to in life, that she could leave Nederland and take her paintings on the road. But now that Larry had called the paintings his, now that Matthew and Marge had verified that they were his, there was no going back.
In nearly every sense of them, the paintings were Larry’s now.
When Larry announced that there would be a painting exhibition in Boulder the following summer, Henrietta couldn’t bring herself to react. Her cheek twitched, and she stumbled to her feet, wondering if she could hold herself upright. When Larry’s arms reached out to hold her up, she felt an intense revulsion. And then, he whispered in her ear, saying, “Matthew mentioned a doctor in Boulder. Someone we can reach out to for help. I think we should go there right away, honey. I think we should start our family. There’s no use saying whose fault it is or what went wrong between us. I see this as a chance to start anew.”
Chapter Eighteen
It was the third week of February on Martha’s Vineyard. Oriana and Reese were in the car on the way to the doctor’s office, shivery and unfocused, trying not to think about the conversation ahead. Since they’d returned from Nederland, they’d known this day was coming. All Oriana wanted in the world was to go back in time, to return to Nederland and that snowstorm, to eat dinner in bed and watch movies and speculate about Larry Calvin Johannes’s con artist skills. She didn’t want to face real life.
Before they left the car, Oriana and Reese held hands and reminded one another that whatever happened, they would be there for one another.
“I love you,” Oriana reminded him. “Through thick and thin.”
Inside the doctor’s office, Oriana and Reese sat with their hands laced together, listening to the latest diagnosis. Reese’s cancer was not in remission. Not yet.
Oriana felt as though her chest was crushed. But Reese looked as though he wasn’t surprised, as though he’d expected this diagnosis. They asked about the next round of treatments and how they should best prepare for them. Reese took everything in stride, which forced Oriana to do the same.She told herself that she could break down later, when Reese couldn’t hear her. She had to be emotionally strong for him.
That night, their children came over for dinner—Alexa and Joel and their partners and children. Oriana ordered heaps of Mexican food and watched from the head of the table as the people she loved most filled their plates. Reese’s appetite was okay for now, but would definitely deplete the minute he started his next treatment, so he ate as much as he could.
Oriana was pleased that her children did their best to keep the conversation going, to smile and laugh and make memories. She knew that they probably wanted to break down into fits of panic, like she did.
Alexa poured Oriana a glass of wine and moved back to her chair beside her son, forcing a smile as she said, “You haven’t told us much about your trip to Colorado! What happened out there?”
“Those snow pictures were insane,” Joel said, his eyes flashing. “You must have felt trapped up there.”
“We loved it!” Reese said exuberantly. “It was such a cozy feeling to be all the way on top of the world with all that snow coming down. It made me think I might want to buy a cabin in the mountains one day.”
Oriana’s chest heaved with fear. Lately, she’d both loved and hated it when Reese brought up plans for the future. She didn’t want to count on anything. Then again, she never wanted their life together to stop.
“I’ve always wanted to take up skiing,” Joel said thoughtfully.
“You’ll have to come out,” Reese said, taking a bite of refried beans. “Oh, but that’s not the most exciting part. Your mother is a genius. She really is. She figured out that this painter guy she discovered, Larry Johannes? He’s not who he says he is.”
Their children gaped at them and smiled, waiting for Reese to fill them in.
“You tell them, honey,” Reese said to Oriana, clearly proud of her.
But when Oriana thought back on Larry and Henrietta and all the grief that surely surrounded them, she felt a sense of loss and disbelief. She wanted to focus on her life with Reese, on Reese’s cancer and treatment, on everything coming for them.
“To put it simply,” she said finally, “I’m pretty sure that Larry’s paintings were painted by his wife.”
Alexa gasped. “The one who disappeared?”
Oriana nodded. She remembered the baby sonogram and the tremendous pain that Henrietta had clearly been going through during the summer of 1975. It felt insane to carry someone’s story so many years after the fact.
“And they really don’t know where she is?” Alexa tilted her head. “I mean, people don’t just disappear, right?”
