by Deanna Roy
“And after?”
“He built this place and closed himself up. There are rooms for every mood, none of them happy.”
“Art wasn’t an escape for him, then?” We paused by a set of double doors at the end of the hall, and Tina sorted through the keys again.
“He tried to make it one, but he just couldn’t get the pain out of his soul,” she said. “The evil clowns came easily to him, so he just kept doing them, over and over, sort of like a child who might rock back and forth when distressed.”
I thought about my old habit of holding my breath to pass out when life got too hard. Maybe it was the same thing. The stuff we did to make it through.
Tina opened the door. The studio was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was a wing off the main house, and the top was all skylight. The far wall was also all windows.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah, a lot of light for someone who was obsessed with one dark subject. He could have painted so many amazing things.”
Several easels stood around, most empty. Cabinets and drawers covered one entire wall. Parts of the room were tidy with blank canvases and clean paint palettes. The rest was chaos, with drops piled up and brushes stuck to dried spatters of paint. Discarded canvases were stacked haphazardly, some of the stacks falling over.
“I started the process of picking up, but I might hire a service in the end,” Tina said. “Long way to go before we can make this a working space.”
“What happened to the assistant who found him?”
“She got spooked after she realized he wasn’t dead and she’d started a bad rumor. Nobody’s heard from her. She abandoned her Facebook pages.” Tina shrugged. “I had the locks rekeyed and the security changed.”
I walked around the room, dodging jars of oils and tin cans of turpentine. I paused by a table with a half-finished sculpture of a woman. “Was this Albert’s?”
“I don’t think so,” Tina said, coming up on it. “He really only did the clowns once he lived here. I’d guess it was the assistant’s or maybe some art student who was around. A few were still coming to work here occasionally.” She touched the base. “I don’t want to move anything that is unidentified, though, for the estate. Albert was big. Big enough that his last incomplete works are very valuable.”
She walked to a corner where a desk with a computer felt out of place, black and modern among all the easels and paints that could have come from almost any era.
I looked at the sculpture again. The woman wore a dress, and the bottom hem looked odd, like it wasn’t hanging down. Like maybe it was floating. I peered at her head. There was no hair yet, just an unformed block. “You think she’s underwater?” I asked Tina. I remembered my coat floating around me in the ocean from that terrible day I walked into the water.
Tina walked back over, holding an envelope. She bent to stare at the statue. “You might be right.” She kneeled down to get super close. “And the way this foot is kicked out. She could be swimming.”
She touched a bit of the statue, then jerked back as if she was burned. “I recognize the marks now from the one he did for me.” Her face was pink from excitement. She ran over to the desk and pulled out a magazine. She turned to an image inside, a picture of Albert when he was young, with a woman.
“Do you think this face looks like her?” Tina asked.
I held the page next to the unfinished sculpture. “Look at the nose,” I said. “I’d say it’s very likely.”
She pressed her hand against her throat. “This might have been what he was working on. What sent him over the edge.”
We stared at the woman a little longer. On the table next to it was another block of wrapped clay. “He was going to add to it,” I said. “There was more.”
Tina set down the magazine and laid her hand on the top of the block. “I bet he was going to try to do his daughter.” Her voice faded to a rasp. “He was trying to do something else. Break out of his rut. Face his demons.”
She took a step back and sat on a tall stool. “I knew when the Parkinson’s started getting to him, he felt this compulsion to finish the things he needed to do.” She reached out to touch the block of clay again. “But with the shaking he wasn’t able to do it the way he wanted. He didn’t think he ever would.”
Tina stood back up. “I’ll call the lawyer. Ask what to do with this. It’s significant.” She headed to the desk again, then stopped. She picked up an envelope from where it rested on an easel and handed it to me. “This is for you.”
I took it and watched her pick up a camera to snap pictures of the location of the sculpture. Then she carefully moved it to a cabinet on the wall where it was less likely to get bumped or damaged.
I turned the envelope over. On the outside was a printed label with the simple word “Corabelle.”
It was not sealed. I lifted the flap and pulled out a sheet of paper folded into thirds. Inside was a legal bit about the will. Then a small bit of paper that said, in shaky handwriting, “For the babies sure to come. Undo the hurt. Albert.”
I glanced up at Tina. She was watching me now, her face serious. She didn’t say anything but pointed at my hands to indicate, keep looking.
Behind the note was a check.
A check for twenty thousand dollars.
Chapter 13: Tina
I couldn’t stop looking at the unfinished sculpture.
I had moved it out of the studio to one of Albert’s private rooms a week ago, the day after Corabelle realized how important it was to the estate. It was now safely housed in a room I could hang out in without feeling squeamish. Albert’s study was steely and impersonal, from the stiff navy leather sofa to the frosty gray shelves filled with clear crystal.
But at least it didn’t look like a fun house or a murder scene.
The statue of the woman stood on an empty desk in front of a set of bay windows. The block of unopened clay still rested in its position at her feet. I circled it, trying to figure out where Albert began and, more importantly, where he stopped. What was the last thing he sculpted on his wife? What broke him?
I remembered with chagrin finding some sculpting tools on the floor of his studio during one of the visits before he died. I picked them up with no clue. So important. The location of them could have told me his state of mind when he stopped working. I had been foolish to put them away in their tray. No matter how much I racked my brain, I could not remember which ones they were.
The question pulsed inside me, night and day. What made Albert snap? What led such a talented man to attempt suicide in his studio in the middle of an important work?
I wanted to know the tiniest detail and hovered over the statue. Had it been the uplifted foot? Or the outstretched arm? Those were complete. Maybe her hair? It was still a block of clay, not yet formed into a swirling underwater mass.
Or perhaps as he prepared to finish the woman, his mind had turned to the wrapped block that would become his only daughter, just six years old. He would watch her die in his hands as he sculpted. He would create her image in a way he hadn’t seen, couldn’t have seen, in those last moments of her life.
It would be too much for anyone.
I turned my gaze away. I had to pull myself together. I knew I was off the rails, hurtling toward disaster. I’d taken a leave of absence from the hospital, claiming I needed to manage Albert’s estate. But really, I couldn’t focus on anything else. Albert’s puzzle felt like my puzzle. It was the only thing I wanted to think about.
I forced myself out of the room and into the hall, only to spin around and go back before I had walked even ten steps away.
The afternoon light pouring in showed the dust on everything other than the desk I had cleaned before placing the sculpture there. I could fix that, tidy the room. It would give me an excuse to stay.
The dust wipes were by the door. I could pick them up. Do the job.
But I sat on the cold sofa instead, my gaze riveted on the woman. Albert had never told me about the
statue. We’d reviewed the contents of the studio, and he had told me the names of his assistant and a couple students who might have works in there, so I’d always assumed this sculpture was someone else’s. Only Corabelle had made the connection.
It was too late to ask him now. Last week, I tried again to locate the assistant, Carly something-or-other. After a tussle with the college campus, I had finally gotten a cell phone number. She clearly didn’t want to talk to me, though, as she never called back, and I had quit trying after the third call rolled straight to her voice mail.
I wasn’t mad at her. If I’d seen Albert on the floor in front of a blood-spattered canvas, I’d have probably freaked out too. I didn’t blame her for posting that he was dead when he wasn’t.
But maybe there was more to it. Maybe she’d stolen something or embezzled money. I’d probably uncover something later.
I didn’t care about that. I wanted information. I wanted to know more. But she wasn’t giving me the chance to ask.
My fingers ached and I realized I’d been clutching the sofa cushion with an iron grip. I let go. Calm down, Tina.
I left the room again, this time forcing myself back to the studio. I had cleaned up another section, although my heart wasn’t in the effort. I wanted to preserve the way it had been, how it had looked when Albert was last there. I took endless pictures, documenting and cataloging. I knew his will called for this space being offered to young artists. I knew I could run a program myself or I could pay someone. It was all specified in the estate documents.
But I wasn’t ready. This was Albert’s place. Where he worked. Where he lived and almost died.
I wanted it for myself.
I’d left my bag and my phone on a stool and felt a pang of guilt at the half-dozen text messages that had come through while I brooded in the study.
Corabelle. Jenny. Darion. My important people. Checking in. Worrying. I typed something merry sounding to Jenny, let Corabelle know I was working, and told Darion I’d be home before his shift was over.
Then I circled the room again, trailing my hand along the easels, straightening small things. This always calmed me.
I sat on a stool in front of a blank canvas. I tried to imagine what would go on it. My image of me and Peanut on the cliff was still incomplete, but I no longer felt the urge to work on it.
I wanted to spatter paint on the pristine white, red and black and silver. I realized those were the colors a long-ago ex-boyfriend had always worked in and felt horror. He was the father of Peanut, who’d ditched me after the baby died. I hated that my mind was turning to that.
Each loss was every loss.
I fed people that line back in the days when I did the suicide-talk circuit. Every time something bad happened, you revisited all your bad things. This was the cycle that led you down a path to despair. Your view of life became one of those optical illusions where you could see two faces or a vase, but now you could see only the one that scared you more. It wouldn’t even occur to you to try to refocus, to see anything else.
I turned away from the blank canvas. I should get out of here, carry on, hire someone to do this work. It was dragging me down, killing me.
But instead, I picked up the outrageous key ring to try again to match up locks with keys. An entire section of cabinets was still inaccessible, and it took patience and perseverance to try each key in each lock and document which was which.
This last section was too high to reach without help. I dragged a step stool over. I pushed aside the keys that had been identified and started with the ones that hadn’t opened anything yet. Sixteen in all, and after several painstaking minutes, none of them fit the large wide cabinet I was going for.
Maybe one of the previous keys also opened this one. I stepped down and made circles with my shoulders, trying to work out the kinks from my position. Time was passing. I could see the light outside the window starting to fade. Just this one cabinet, and then I would go.
I sorted keys and headed up again. Probably the dang thing was empty or had nothing but dried-out oil paints. But I’d gotten this far.
The first key wouldn’t go in. The second one slid in but wouldn’t turn. I jiggled it carefully to be sure. Nope.
The third key was way too large. The fourth too small.
The fifth slid in again.
I dropped my arms, letting blood flow back into my hands. Still at least six of these cabinets to unlock some other day. I glanced around. Albert sure had a lot of storage in here.
I reached up and jiggled the key. Yes. I felt the lock twist and tugged the handle.
The door was open, but I couldn’t really see inside. It was too high. I needed a taller ladder. I jumped down and made a note on my sketch of the cabinets that key #5 opened it.
Taller ladder. I hadn’t seen one anywhere in the house. But I hadn’t searched the four-car garage. The one time I popped my head in there, I spotted Albert’s small Alfa Romeo and a ton of shop machine tools. Everything there seemed in order, so I hadn’t explored.
But before I could leave, something moved beyond the bushes outside the wall of windows. I paused, peering out. A car was pulling up to the driveway. I couldn’t see it clearly, due to the shrubbery.
I had gotten the exterior door cleared, although it wasn’t easy to open, sticking unless you jerked on it. I braced my feet and clasped the handle. After a couple sharp tugs, it pulled free.
The cool evening breeze was refreshing. I always forgot how dense the air in the studio was, heavy with the smells of old paints and chemicals. I stepped out so I could see the circle drive.
It was Darion.
He stood beside his Mercedes, looking up at the front doors. He hadn’t been here before. How had he gotten in the gate?
“Darion?” I said.
He turned and spotted me, giving me a broad smile. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt, so his shift was long over. I swallowed my guilt. I really had lost track of time.
He turned back to his car and removed a picnic basket. I recognized it from the place we’d gone to on an early date, when I first saw the cliff where I would paint the image of me and Peanut. My throat tightened. Darion always knew what to do.
“Figured you’d be hungry by now,” he said, striding over.
“How did you get in the gate?”
“A little trick an ambulance driver told me.” He held out his hand to me.
I took it. “Oh,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.” And I tried to be. This was Darion. I should be happy to see him. But still, I felt uneasy, like my secret life was getting exposed.
I looked back at the house. “Do you want the grim tour?”
“Maybe later.” He still held the smile, but I could see the question in his eyes. The how are you?
“Good idea,” I said, forcing a smile of my own. “It might make you lose your appetite.”
He pulled me tight against him as we walked back to the studio door. He gestured to the gray brick walls by lifting the basket. “Cheerful.”
“I know. Albert was not exactly a picture of mental health during the years he lived here.” I let go of Darion so we could pass through the door.
He stopped once he got inside to look over the room. “Wow. This is a nice setup.” He placed the basket on an empty counter and walked around, looking at easels and some of the completed paintings. He paused in front of an image of a sunflower. “That doesn’t seem like Albert.”
“I’m trying to identify the artist,” I said. “There were some students and interns working here too.”
Darion nodded. He glanced up and noticed the step stool and open cabinet, the key ring still stuck inside the lock. “Were you able to reach that?”
“I was looking for a taller ladder when you arrived,” I said.
He headed for the wall. “You want me to pull down whatever’s up there?”
“Sure.” I stuffed down my resistance, the need to go through Albert’s things alone. This was Darion. Maybe sharing the mome
nt with him would help.
He stepped up. He could easily reach inside. “Sort of dark,” he said, “but it looks like some wrapped paintings.” He turned and stuck his arm farther back. “And something bulky.”
“Be careful,” I said, my excitement rising. Finished works! I knew it! I just hoped they were Albert’s, and not someone else’s being stored.
Darion pulled down a strangely shaped parcel in brown paper. I hurried over and took it from him. The point of something sharp poked my arm as I held it.
I set it on the desk and waited for Darion to bring down the paintings. They were also carefully taped up in brown paper. He brought them over to the desk.
“This is like a treasure hunt,” Darion said. “An archaeological dig, maybe.”
I carefully peeled the paper away from what felt like a sculpture. Hopefully it wasn’t just some old piece of equipment.
But when the glint of a twisting gold horn was revealed, I knew exactly what I had found.
Albert’s unicorns.
My knees wobbled, and Darion took my elbow to steady me. “What is it?” he asked.
“Albert made these…” I couldn’t go on. It was like a relic from some bygone era, a place where no one could ever go again.
Darion tugged the rest of the paper away. “It’s really beautiful.”
And it was. So powerful, almost alive with energy and purpose. Its eyes bored right into you, and staring into them was unsettling, as if you’d uncovered some mysterious power.
I couldn’t believe this work hadn’t helped his career. But it had to be the subject matter. The world wanted pain, not beauty, in art. Suffering. The human condition.
Seeing it made me despair all the more for the life Albert could have led. His daughter could be here instead of me. He could have had grandchildren, perhaps another talented hand among his descendants.
Just the thought of passing down your passion to children brought me full circle back to the pain of my loss.
