“What makes you ask that?” Tom replies, trying to sound neutral. Trying to sound as though there’s no guilt in his soul or heart.
Marnie’s gaze moves from his hand to his eyes. “I don’t know. Just a feeling I’m getting.”
Tom’s mouth runs dry. “Your feeling is wrong. There’s no one. There’s been no one.”
It’s not a lie. She’s no one to his mother. But, in his heart, Ari will never be ‘no one’. Not to him.
Marnie nods. Whether she believes him or not she doesn’t say. Of all her many brilliant qualities, Marnie’s uncanny ability to know when to speak and when to stay quiet always did shine the brightest. Whatever she’s thinking, whatever cards she’s holding, she chooses to keep close to her chest.
“Okay,” Marnie simply nods, and Tom stands.
“Maybe you should sell Dad’s plane,” he offers. “Maybe it’s time for all of us to move on.”
“Sell his baby?” Marnie scoffs. “What a ridiculous idea. She’s yours, and she’ll be here whenever you need her.”
Something inside of him eases at that thought. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Tom?” Marnie reaches over, taking his hand once more.
“Yeah?”
“I meant what I said. Maybe instead of finding playing cards in books you could find a nice woman. I want you to be happy, Tom. I really do.”
“Thanks,” he says again, “so do I.”
It’s only later, as he’s falling into bed, that he realises he meant it. Of their whole conversation, that was the most honest thing he said.
He does want to be happy. He just doesn’t know how to be happy without Ari.
* * *
He goes back to his apartment in Brooklyn, though ‘back’ isn’t really the right word when it’s the first time he’s ever actually lived in it. He rented it on an impulse during Doug’s final illness, bought furniture for it and registered all his mail to be delivered there, but never got round to moving in. His first night there is strange, with the noise of the city keeping him awake, the shadows and lights playing on his wall unfamiliar and distracting. He figures he’s grown too used to his mother’s house, too used to the quiet countryside and dark skies. He knows it will take time to adjust to the change, and time is something he has plenty of.
The apartment comes with big built-in bookcases — probably why he rented it in the first place, Tom reflects, having always been a reader — which he fills liberally with literature. Among the contemporary thrillers and great American novels, Tom starts quite the collection of self-help books. Books on grief and moving forward. One particularly catches him, and he stays up an entire night reading it. It talks about the human body and how it repairs itself. Wounds and disease wreak havoc, but the body can heal, creating new tissue. Tom wonders if heartbreak works the same — can’t help but wonder if the shattered pieces of his soul will ever reform, just as he wonders if the ache inside him will ever ease. He knows wounds leave scars, and maybe that’s what will happen in his case. Maybe Ari will be the scar on his heart he’ll carry forever. In a way, he almost hopes so. There’s a cold kind of comfort in knowing that he’ll carry part of her with him until he dies, a cold kind of comfort in knowing the flame of his love will burn for ever, even if that flame leaves ashes of grief within.
But he has to move on. He wants to be happy. His father told him to be happy.
He finds work easily. The family name and his mother’s reputation still carry a lot of weight in the world of finance, and he picks up work as a trader for a private banking firm. The salary isn’t outrageous, but the bonuses are, and Tom throws himself into the role with gusto, trying not to admit to himself that he doesn’t really have much else to do these days. He develops a routine, which is strangely comforting in its unending familiarity, and he sticks to it rigorously. He regularly puts in twelve to fourteen-hour days, but he makes a point of travelling to his mom’s house at least one day a week. There, he has lunch with Marnie before taking his dad’s plane into the sky. He loops and swirls in the air for an hour or two, emptying his mind and still-troubled soul, before returning to the ground and giving her a maintenance check.
“She’s still the same old beauty, Dad,” he always whispers when he closes the log book, before making the slow walk back to the house. He takes tea with Marnie in the evening, and most days he’ll end the meal by offering his mother a kiss before hopping into his car. But one night she stops him.
“Before you leave, you should see something,” she tells him, and leads him down to the gallery, her heels clicking lightly on the marble floor. “That painting you bought? In Europe? It’s finally ready. The framer took his sweet time with it, I have to say. He said he wanted to use Norwegian Fir to make the frame, keeping with the theme of the painting, or some such nonsense. Well, I’m no artist, and obviously Peterson’s been framing my pictures for years, so I won’t judge his choices... But I think American Oak would have worked just as well, don’t you?”
She switches on a light at the end of the long hall, and there in front of them isThe Ends of the Earth, just the sameas the last time Tom saw it. He inhales sharply, the painting momentarily flooring him, and he has to take a moment to steady the sudden rise in tempo of his heart.
“You put it where I asked,” Tom whispers gratefully. “You put it where it belongs.”
The orange is still as vibrant as he recalls — the greys and whites just as beautifully blended. Tom tucks his hands in his pockets, the ghost of a smile crossing his face as he remembers how delicately Ari would hold a paintbrush in her hands, nibbling on the end while she considered how to translate her thoughts and feelings onto canvas. He remembers how her tongue always poked out when she painted — how her brow furrowed in concentration. Momentarily, Tom closes his eyes and allows himself the luxury of remembering. Allows himself to remember her hands, and how paint would stay under her fingernails and in the slight creases of her skin. Remembers how they always smelled of flowers and turpentine, an odd but addictive mix. Remembers how her fingers felt running down his cheeks.
When he opens his eyes again, he gives his mother a warm smile. “Thank you,” he says, honestly and gratefully, and Marnie smiles back.
“It’s not a bad piece, you know. I couldn’t make out the signature though. Who’d you say it was by again?”
“I didn’t,” Tom replies tightly. “I got it in Norway.”
“Well, if you ever see any more of their work, I wouldn’t mind having another.”
“More of their work?” Tom parrots back, a thought suddenly striking him. More work. Ari might have painted more work.
