“Of course.” Gretchen smiled easily. “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we have questions.”
Hilary had disappeared around a corner. Gretchen followed, her low heels clicking noisily on the polished floor. Despite her time in classes at Dartmouth and in museums all over the world, Gretchen didn’t really understand art. It didn’t make her feel anything at all, though she knew enough to feel a certain shame about this, especially when Richard went on and on.
But Gretchen startled when she rounded the corner and emerged into a vast, all-white central gallery space. An enormous canvas hung straight ahead—muted pinks, reds, purples. It was of a naked woman. Abstract, but the figure’s disembodied…female parts…were certainlyveryeasy to make out. Much easier than in real life. Outsize breasts, more than one actual…vagina. Gretchen looked around at the other paintings. More naked women. That’s what every single painting was of. Was this a sick joke?
Some of the figures confronted the viewer, others looked away, their broken, angular bodies arranged in various degrees of open sexual display. But as strange and provocative as they were, there was something tender about them—even Gretchen had to admit that. Vulnerable. Gretchen found herself suddenly overwhelmed by sadness.
They should never have come. Some things really were better left unknown.
Now Gretchen was drowning.
***
It was Richard who reminded her of the dream when they’d gone to stay at her parents’ house. Newly pregnant with Elizabeth, she had been sitting by the pool with Richard while her mother walked the garden holding Cassandra’s puffy little baby hand and enthusiastically identifying the flowers. Her mother should have only ever been a grandmother. Midge excelled at attentive warmth in fifteen-minute increments.
“Maybe it was this,” Richard said, drawing Gretchen’sattention. He motioned to the pool with his newspaper, his tone bright, as if he had just solved an inexplicable mystery.
“The pool? What about the pool?”
“That dream you used to have,” he said. “Didn’t you say you fell in once before you knew how to swim?”
When Gretchen was little, she’d had a recurring nightmare that she was drowning in her bedroom. In her dream, she’d wake to find the water rising, her bed rocking back and forth on the waves.
“Oh,” she said, and laughed. “God, how did you even remember that? I think I told you that on our second date.”
“Our third,” he said, winking at her before returning to his crossword puzzle. “But who’s counting?”
Gretchen shifted her gaze back to the garden. When she’d fallen in the pool she’d been a couple years older than Cassandra now, but not much.
“You know, I always screamed when I woke up, like some kind of horror movie. And my parents never, ever came.” Her mother’s figure was growing blurry when Richard reached over to take her hand.
“I would have come,” he said, squeezing tightly. “I would have come every time.”
***
Gretchen woke to the sound of buzzing. She had fallen asleep at the kitchen counter, her cheek pressed against the cool marble. She’d left a small puddle of drool—how embarrassing.
The text was from Scotty.
FYI.Brooks at some company retreat. I tried his cell, but a receptionist said he might not have a signal. Left a message at the hotel, too. If you want, here’s a link. I’m trying to track down his assistant, too. I doubt he knows anything useful anyway.
“Hey, Mom.”
Elizabeth loomed in the shadows of the kitchen doorway like some kind of judgmental ghost. Gretchen was in no mood to justify anything, not after seeing those paintings. “Oh, hello, honey.”
Elizabeth stepped closer. In the light, her face didn’t look angry or judgmental at all. Only sad.
“What if…he did it?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Well, you look upset. You’ve looked upset ever since I got home.”
“Of course I’m upset, Elizabeth. Your father’s been arrested,” Gretchen said. “You haven’t trusted the government for years, and now you believe that just because the police arrest someone they must have actually committed the crime?”
Elizabeth lifted her chin, but instead of snapping at Gretchen, she remained quiet for an excruciatingly long time. It was far worse, it turned out, than her daughter’s usual frontal assault. “Mom, who was this woman?”
“She was in Afri—”
