If she was honest with herself — and why bother with the truth when it causes wrinkles, constipation, and other joys of adulthood? — she’d stopped loving him a long time ago. Maybe the week after he’d saved her from a concussion on the restroom floor. Or maybe when he forgot their first anniversary and worked late. This was no gothic romance. There was no magic moment when the spark went out. Maybe it was just a shallow flame after all, not the raging fire they imagined drew them to the altar.
What had she loved in him, all those years ago? She scrunched up her eyes and tried to think back. He was generous, he’d given her flowers unexpectedly, diamonds from time to time, this house she hated. For a man driven by money he wasn’t stingy, not at all. Except perhaps with his time. The only time they went out together was for business. That had been his way for years. And she had never complained.
She got up and stared at herself in the bedroom mirror. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, and stringy. The mascara she’d put on for the meeting with the lawyers had smudged. Her lips were thin and cracked. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath. The rock was lodged there, but somehow a tiny bit smaller. For an instant she saw a glimpse of herself when all this was over: attractive, smiling, lovable. And younger: how was that going to happen? Wake up, Merle.
The doorbell rang. She rubbed her cheeks, and marched to the door, eager to pounce on another cheesy casserole or gooey dessert. Betsy stood on the porch in her clogs and barn jacket. Faithful friend and cheerer-upper, Betsy had been stopping by each evening, when she knew things grew too quiet. They had been friends since their kids were in preschool, and still jogged together once in awhile. As Merle made them both herbal tea, Betsy’s eyes turned toward the thumping ceiling.
“He got in a fight at school. I probably sent him back too soon.” Merle set down her cup. “I heard the will today.” She summarized the inheritance, such as it was.
Betsy’s eyes widened. “Wait — no trust fund for Tris?”
“I guess he never got around to it.”
The word hung in the air: Bastard. “But what about you? Will you stay at Legal Aid?”
“For the time being. I’ve been trying to think. Do you know anybody else whose husband died young like Harry?”
“Well. You remember Margo Willoughby. She was about forty-five when Gus died.” Betsy bit off her next sentence as they both remembered Margo had flipped out, treated herself to a bad face-lift then married a guy who owned a strip club in New Jersey.
Merle drained her tea cup and smiled. “Time to perfect that cannoli recipe?”
She took the file Troy Lester gave her to bed. The obituary for Harry’s parents was something he’d never shared. Despite his material generosity he hadn’t really been the sharing type, always buzzing off to his meetings and reading endless financial newspapers. He’d rarely sat down in the kitchen to chat like she’d just done with Betsy. Had he ever seen this clipping? New York Herald Tribune. March 2, 1954.
Weston Montgomery Strachie and his French bride, Marie-Emilie, died tragically on a rainy night as they returned to their home on Long Island from a romantic outing in Atlantic City. Their auto skidded off the road on a curve and struck a large oak tree that has claimed the lives of more than a few drivers over the years. Husband and wife were pronounced dead at the scene. They leave behind their four-year-old son, Harold.
Weston, 37, was a devoted husband and father. He met his bride in France after his Army service during World War II. His business as a wine and spirits importer brought him frequently to the country. They married in 1947, and their son was born several years later. They moved back to the United States in 1952, settling in Levittown.
Marie-Emilie, 26, who preferred to be called Emilie, will be remembered as a sunny, lively girl, a devoted wife and mother. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.
Weston is survived by his loving sister, Amanda Wilson and her husband, Sylvester, who have opened their hearts and home to little Harold, and by his mother, Louise Strachie, of Buffalo. Marie-Emilie is survived by many relations in France.
There was another, smaller announcement in the Times. The only new information was Marie-Emilie’s maiden name, Chevalier. She reread the Herald Tribune obit; it had the touch of Aunt Amanda, last seen in a dinner plate hat at Harry’s funeral. After Sylvester died she traveled the world with friends from her days as a dress buyer at Macy’s.
“Marie-Emilie Chevalier,” Merle whispered aloud. Was she really sunny and lively, or was that just Amanda’s drama? Merle closed her eyes. She’d missed having a mother-in-law, all these years. Amanda had played the part but not exactly, not being the maternal type. Merle tried to imagine Harry as a little child, round and smiling, playing in the fields of lavender — the way she imagined the French countryside, bucolic and fragrant.
The bass and drums of music videos thumped through the ceiling, bringing her back to the present. She put the obituary aside. Like so much in the past, it didn’t matter. Not any more.
3
1949
“Complaining will not keep you alive.”
She backs through the gate with the chicken held by its legs as it flaps and squawks. Pausing inside the garden she looks up at the window. Cigarette smoke curls out, which means Weston is working at his typewriter. No tapping sounds so he isn’t actually typing. She wonders if that is good or bad. He believes, like the chicken, that complaining will change his fate. He truly thinks that sour thoughts, and words, about his writing not selling will magically make it sell, when it made sense to accept defeat.
Marie-Emilie sets down the vegetables and the bread on a spot of shade behind the outhouse. She has been lucky at the market, the first real piece of good luck they’d had in weeks. There had been potatoes and leeks, and some asparagus for the first time. The chicken is scrawny but will provide a week’s worth of soup. The bread was cheap because it is last week’s, hard and dry but she has a method to make it right again. Normally the farmers are hard on her at market, raising their prices out of spite. They are suspicious of strangers, from the war, she imagines, but why they take it out on her, a real Frenchwoman, is beyond her. The villagers’ coldness hurts her. She would move back to her own village in a moment, but there is no house to live in there.
The chicken scratches her leg with its beak, causing her to cry out. Weston comes to the window, frowns, and disappears. Jaw clenched she grabs the neck of the bird and gives it a violent twist. With the axe she dispatches its head. Basket between her legs she plucks its feathers, then cleans it. Inside she lays a fire, filling the kettle with water and hooking it onto the iron arm. Weston hollers down from upstairs.
“What the blazes are you doing now? It’s so hot my fingernails are sweating and you build a fucking fire.”
He appears on the stairs, cigarette hanging from his mouth, in his undershirt. She dislikes seeing him this way, half-dressed in suspenders and wrinkled trousers. Sometimes he goes out on the streets, walking in the evening, like this. Is it any wonder no one likes them?
“Fresh chicken,” she says. “For soup.”
“It’s too fucking hot for soup,” he growls. “Where’d you get the money?”
“Barter,” she says, smiling. “No money.”
“What did you barter then, cherie?” His eyes are hateful and black. Money is his biggest worry since things went bad in Nice. They had come with such hopes, with money in their pockets. All gone now. Between the wine business and the writing, they haven’t seen any money for a month. But he finds wine to drink. His fingers are stained with it.
“Old clothes,” she says, smoothing her cotton skirt. He would never know if she had sold clothes or not. He hates all her clothes.
He takes a long drag on his cigarette. “What clothes?”
“Some old ones I do not wear.” In Nice he bought her the satin dress, fancy shoes, the lovely soft jacket. She sold them months ago.
He looks her over with his hard eyes, not lingering, as
she hoped he wouldn’t, on the faded blue scarf she wears on her head. Planning this day she wore the scarf for a week, hiding her long, black hair until this morning when she sold it for sixteen francs to a woman from Bordeaux who makes wigs for whores.
He frowns at the kettle, now bubbling. “I’m going out.” In the garden he washes himself in the American way, she supposes, of splashing a few handfuls of water on one’s neck, and slams the gate behind him.
Sitting on the stool in front of the hot fire, she thinks she will write to her aunt. Ask her why she gave up this house, if there is some curse on it. Maybe there is a way to find happiness here that she is too blind to see. With the curse lifted, Weston will be happy and they will have a baby.
She chops leeks and tears flow from her eyes. As she throws the vegetables into the kettle she prays once more for a child. Then they will both be so happy they will love each other forever.
Table of Contents
Painted Truth
Prologue
Midpoint
Painted Truth Page 25
