My mother sighs audibly, and I recognize the tone of it. Patient, though with a touch of condescension and mild disappointment, because I didn’t try hard enough to figure it out myself.
“She’s painted a portal, my darling.”
I frown, turn back to the painting. Try to see it with this new information, which honestly makes even less sense. “A portal for what?”
“For you, of course.”
I’ve lost my mind.
I’m talking to my dead mother—or at least the back of her precariously balanced head—as though she’s a colleague, as though she’s alive. Worse than that, I’m asking my dead motherfor advice. Any comfort I’ve found in my flimsy explanations disappears in an instant.
I should call Maeve. Tell her what’s happening and get her professional advice. She did gently offer her services after her birthday dinner, “at the best-friend rate,” which I know means free of charge.
But I don’t call Maeve, because I don’t know where to start.
I also don’t call Kat, because she’ll tell Nick (why does she have to tell him everything?), who will call Wyatt.
Something is seriously wrong with this painting. Possibly with Charlotte Leclerc herself, when she painted it. Circling the problem brings no clarity. I can’t tease out answers to my fear-soaked questions, because there aren’t any. This defies logic.
“A portal,”my mother said.
A portal…for what?
“For you, of course.”
What the hell does that mean?
“I need you to leave,” I say, the next time my mother shows up in my studio.
I’m about to start on the section where I’m sure to find the subject’s eyes, and I want complete silence. No further distractions. I can’t focus with her here. More than that, I don’t want to have to justify this apparition of my long-departed mother anymore.
“Mathilde, I’m only trying to help,”she replies, in my mother’s voice. It’s so exact today, it’s heartbreaking. I glance toward her, noting she’s turned. Or at least her head has. I see her face, her slight frown. But I also see her back, her palms facing me. It’s discombobulating and makes me feel ill. Still, I force myself to keep my eyes on her face.
“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here—maybe I am sick, who knows.” I mumble the last part, mostly to myself. Shake my head. “But you can’t be here. I don’t want you here. Leave,please.”
She smiles, and it’s my mother’s smile. A sharp pain fills my chest.
“I shouldn’t leave, Mathilde. We’re too close,”she says.
“Close to what?” I ask, impatient as I set my cotton-tipped swab down on my thigh. My heart rate beats steadily, but I know it’sincreasing the longer I look at her. Sure enough, my watch buzzes and I quickly glance down to hit the OK button, promising to do breath work.
“Close to what?” I ask again, looking up at her.
But she’s not there. The corner of the studio is empty.
“Mom?” I call out quietly. Turning around on the stool, looking for her, I even check under the workbench, in case she’s lying underneath it—where I found her yesterday, face down and body up.
My studio is silent, eerily so. “Mom, are you here?”
Again, no response. But I notice something else. The room feels…lighter. As though a refreshing early-spring breeze has come through the windows, clearing out the stale indoor air. I take a deep breath, then let it out.
She’s gone.
—
A week later there’s still no sign of my mother. I can’t see her, I can’t hear her, I can’t feel her. I’m both thankful and heartsick.
I’ve also uncovered the subject’s eyes, which are closed as though she’s asleep. There are delicate purplish veins on the eyelids. Long, beautiful lashes that surprisingly contain feathery moth antennae. I announce this discovery out loud. “Mom, you won’t believe what I found in the…” My voice trailing off when I remember I’m alone in the studio.
