I start unpacking things from Stella’s bag, rub some moisturizer on her hands and her face.
“I can do that,” Matthew says.
“I really don’t mind. I want to help.” It’s true.
“I feel useless,” he admits softly.
“That’s normal. My mom was in the hospital a lot when I was a kid. I used to sleep over in her room even though technically it wasn’t allowed. I think the doctors knew I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I wanted to be able to do something for her, but I couldn’t. It always just took time.”
“How is your mom now?” Matthew asks.
“Still alive,” I say with a wan smile.
The doctor strides in, imperious and no-nonsense. She’s about my mother’s age but has clearly taken better care of herself over the years. And despite the weariness in her eyes from a long shift, her makeup, including a dash of red lipstick, is incredibly chic.
“Monsieur Swanson,” she addresses Matthew in French. I’m able to follow along at the start, but I begin to lose her. There are some words I do recognize, and one of them issurgery. At that Matthew shakes his head in disbelief.
“They said it was a small stroke,” he murmurs in English. The doctor elegantly switches languages.
“There is blood building up in her cerebral cortex and we need to drain it, I’m afraid. The sooner, the better.”
“She’s so weak. How will she do under anesthesia?”
“I do not want to lie to you. We cannot predict that. There is a chance, a real one, that she will not wake back up once we put her under.”
Matthew slumps into the chair as if all his muscles have gone slack. “I can’t let you do it.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a choice. If we don’t operate, we will lose her anyway. And we must make the decision very soon. Within the next five minutes would be preferable.”
This is all too personal. I shouldn’t be here, but I am, so I place an arm on Matthew’s shoulder to comfort him as he presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids to hide his tears.
“Can you give us a minute?” I ask her. She must assume I’m a family member, perhaps even a girlfriend.
I want to tell him everything that’s rushing through my mind. That I truly believe it’s impossible for Stella to die on that operating table. I don’t know why or how I believe it, but I do with every single cell in my body. She’s not finished here yet. She has plans, I want to scream. But that won’t help. So I rub his shoulders, and I say the only thing that does make sense.
“She’s strong. Let them do their job.”
Sometimes we just need to be told what to do. We just need permission. When I applied for the art school scholarship and got it, that validation gave me both. It made me believe that I had talent, that I was worthy of more than the shitty life I’d been given. I know it did the same for Lucie and for Colette. Stellahadchosen wisely when it came to us. All of us needed the approval, would have languished without it, and now we’ll probably do anything to keep it. Anything for her.
He goes to find the doctor. When he returns he tells me the surgery will take four hours. She’ll be prepped and brought inwithin the next fifteen minutes; he just has to sign a ton of paperwork. I squeeze Stella’s hand and whisper in her ear, so quietly that I know Matthew can’t hear me.
“I’m here for all of it when you wake up. Whatever you need.”
When I kiss her forehead, her eyelids flutter slightly, her lips twitch nearly into a smile, but she doesn’t wake up.
“I’ve got you.”
12
Claire
Reading Theo’s lettersto Vincent is like being welcomed into a secret world. I’m searching for places he might have mentioned me, but also for the incident with Paul Gauguin in Arles that both Anna and Agostina Segatori have alluded to, the one that drives Jo’s obsession with Vincent’s art. I’m too nervous to ask her about it myself.
But there are other dark secrets. In one letter Vincent revealed to his brother that an acquaintance of his, Miss Begemann, had taken poison.
“I had heard about poor Margot Begemann in passing,” Jo explains as background for me. “She was a neighbor who had fallen in love with Vincent, but her family disapproved of the relationship for many reasons.”
“She lost the power of speech and mumbled all sorts of only half-comprehensible things, collapsed with all sorts of convulsions, cramps,” he wrote. Vincent forced her to vomit and seek medical care. The incident shook him greatly.
