What Could Be Saved

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  PART 6

  2019

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  LAURA WOKE cotton-mouthed under a bright panel of sky, blue with floating clouds. For a moment she didn’t know where she was—then she remembered stomping up to the studio the evening before, still stoned from Kelsey’s pot gummy, spying on the happy family in the window. The rest cascaded back: I quit my family and paintings no one will buy. She sat up carefully, experimentally. No dizziness. She got up, drank cold water from the tap, went downstairs. She was in the kitchen poking through the refrigerator when the front doorbell rang.

  “You look like hell,” said Bea when Laura shot the bolt and opened the door.

  “Thanks. Why are you here?”

  Her sister just looked at her. A moment of standoff before Laura moved aside to let her in.

  Bea put her head back to look at the foyer ceiling as she went through; in the living room, she turned in place. “This is nice,” she said. Laura said nothing. “May I see the studio? I’ve been so curious.”

  You could have seen it anytime in the last twenty years, Laura didn’t say as she led the way up the stairs. It was gratifying to see Bea’s expression as she emerged into the glass room.

  “This is—” she said. Words failed her; she shook her head.

  “I designed it,” said Laura. “Well, me and an architect and a very expensive contractor who brought us both down to earth.”

  “I remember how expensive,” said Bea, who’d written the checks. She walked to the window. “What a view.”

  “It’s special glass to bounce the heat off, and there are motorized light-blocking shades, otherwise I’d cook like an egg on hot days. All controlled from there.” Laura pointed to the glass control panel. “I wanted clean lines, so everything does double duty. Every interior wall hides a cabinet; that loveseat folds out into a bed.”

  “It’s ingenious,” Bea said. She was examining the control panel. “Daddy would have loved this.”

  A far cry from what she’d said when Laura wanted to build it: Yes, he left us the money, but not to waste. Then Laura remembered: paintings no one will buy.

  “You’ve been buying my paintings,” she said. “Behind my back.”

  “I was trying to help.” Then “It was only six paintings.”

  “Beatrice,” Laura said, crossing her arms across her chest. “Why are you here?”

  “Mum’s birthday brunch on Saturday,” Bea said. “I don’t want you to miss it because—” She broke off before saying you’re sulking. “You don’t have to forgive me, or even talk to me. But it would be wrong not to have you there.”

  “Why? Mum wouldn’t miss me.” From Bea’s expression, Laura realized she’d interpreted that as a callous reference to the dementia. She clarified, “Not that. I mean—she wouldn’t ever have missed me.” To her annoyance, she felt her voice tremble in her throat. “I’ve always been the least important person in this family.”

  Bea huffed an exhalation, as if Laura had punched her. She walked the few steps to the loveseat, sank down onto it. “I can’t believe you think that,” she said.

  “Of course I think that,” said Laura.

  Bea didn’t speak right away; she ran her hand over the rough weave of the loveseat cushion. “The other day you mentioned the Drills,” she said finally.

  “Yes,” said Laura, after a tiny delay of surprise. “I hated those.”

  “I hated them too,” said Bea. Watching her own hand as it moved over the fabric, forward then back.

  “Then why?” said Laura, sitting down beside her. “Why did you do them?”

  “Philip happened,” said Bea. Stilling her hand, but not looking up. “And then we came home, and the Lyon sisters happened. And there you and I were, every day, walking in the early morning, all alone. Two little girls.” Laura saw it again, that long empty rise of pavement up Albemarle Street to the first bus stop. “I chose houses that looked friendly. Ones without dogs, that looked like kids or nice older people might live there. Window boxes with flowers, or Big Wheels in the driveways.”

  “What was the point?” said Laura.

  “The Drills were my survival plan,” said Bea. She brought her eyes up to Laura’s. “I was training you to run to safety, when the inevitable kidnapper came along.” A short laugh. “It wasn’t much of a plan.”

  “Why didn’t we both run?” said Laura. “Why just me?”

  Bea shrugged. “We couldn’t both outrun a grown man,” she said. “And you were the one who needed to be saved. You were what could be saved, of our family.”

  It was such a new concept—her sister had been trying to protect her, not torment her—that Laura was silent.

  “I am sorry we have never talked about any of this,” said Bea. “When we came home I planted myself in the present and faced forward. I left the past behind, and put down roots as deep as I could. While you tear up roots as soon as they begin to grow.” She put a hand up to forestall whatever Laura was about to say. “Not a criticism, just an observation.” Laura nodded. Bea dropped her hand. “And I’m sorry about buying the paintings,” she said. “I can see now that it was the wrong thing to do.”

  “It’s humiliating,” said Laura.

  “You seemed to be in a hole. I wanted to provide invisible assistance while you got yourself out of it.”

  “I have been in a hole,” said Laura. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of it.” The admission made her breathless for a moment. “I think I need to be free to paint, and I haven’t been free.”

  “What do you mean, free?” asked Bea. “Edward?”

  Laura shook her head. “I think—Mum.” She paused for her sister’s objection, but it did not come; Bea sat quiet, listening. “Since she was diagnosed it’s been like I’ve been caught in a whirlpool that I can’t swim out of.”

  “A whirlpool of what?” said Bea.

  “I don’t know. The past? The things I half remember, the things I never understood. I think I always kept a little hope that someday Mum would explain at least some of it.” With a scornful laugh at herself, “Of course, I could have asked.”

  “We were trained not to ask,” said Bea.

  “And now it’s too late. We’ll never understand any of it.”

  “There’s the difference between you and me,” Bea said. “I don’t need to understand.” Said without judgment, just a statement of fact: I am here, and you are there. “I’m not telling you that you can’t quit the family,” she said. “I’m asking you: please don’t quit the family.”

  “You have to stop buying my paintings,” said Laura.

  “They’re an investment,” said Bea. “But I will stop.” They smiled at each other, something settled between them. Bea stood, straightening her skirt. “And try to forgive Sullivan,” she said. “I talked him into it.”

  That made sense, thought Laura, following her sister down the stairs; Sullivan would be no match for Beatrice.

  At the front door, Bea paused. “For what it’s worth,” she said. Her eyes a steadier, less unearthly blue than their mother’s. “I think all of your paintings are beautiful.”

  * * *

  After Beatrice left, Laura made and ate an enormous omelet, stripped the tape from the walls of the most recently painted room, bundled up the drop cloths in there, and repositioned the furniture. She found her phone and turned it on, held it in her hand for a minute, considering. It was Tuesday, one p.m. Edward would be having lunch at his desk. She touched his name in the Contacts list, listened to the rings.

  “Hello,” said Edward. His voice held a bit of surprise. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No,” she said. It felt absolutely true. “I was just checking in.”

  * * *

  On Wednesday night she wakes, suddenly, as if there’s been a shout in her ear. She gets out of bed and climbs up into the dark studio, presses the icon on the control panel to illuminate a set of floodlights over the work area.

  When she is done, it’s late afternoo
n. She stands before the canvas, clutching the scraping tool. Five minutes, ten, heart lurching in her body as she looks. Slowly she extends her hand and opens her fingers, lays it down.

  * * *

  “I forgot to tell you to get ice,” said Bea when she opened the door of the Tudor. She took the bag of groceries from Laura’s arms. “Did you remember the anchovies?”

  “I made something good,” said Laura. Her smile felt like a cartoon, a half-circle lemon slice of a smile. It had still been good after she had taken a long walk and then a shower; it was still good after she’d napped. She’d left it for two solid days in the studio, almost afraid to look again. Felt it humming up there while she did pre-party prep tasks from the list Bea sent via text, and finally that morning, had sneaked up to the studio for another look.

  “That’s wonderful,” said Beatrice, smiling back. “I look forward to seeing it.” She looked behind Laura, where Edward was coming up the path carrying a bag of ice in each hand. “Ah, Edward,” she said. “I knew I could count on you.”

  Edward followed Bea into the kitchen; Laura went into the sitting room, where Philip sat reading a book.

  “I’m sorry for what I said to you,” Laura told him.

  He looked up, blinking, as if emerging from a deep cave into strong light. He’d done that when he was a child, she recalled, exactly that.

  “Mai pen rai,” he said. He laid the book down. “Waffles,” he said, and they both smiled. Waffles was Preston family shorthand for: this is mine, don’t touch it without permission.

  “Where is everyone?” Laura said.

  “In the backyard,” said Philip, gesturing to the wall of windows. “Clem got Mum a drone for her birthday.”

  “Oh my God,” said Laura. She looked down through the glass at the group of them. Genevieve was holding the controller in both hands, Clem beside her. The twins and Noi and Tom, and all of their daughters, were standing with their heads back, looking up. “Clem is an awesome man.”

  “He is ridiculous,” said Bea fondly, coming to stand with her.

  “Hello?” came a call from behind them. They turned to see a white-haired man in the entry hall.

  “Uncle Todd!” cried Bea, going to embrace him. She put her arm through his as they came back together, to the doorway of the sitting room.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said, his eyes warm on Bea, taking in Laura, flitting to Philip.

  “It’s been a long time,” said Laura.

  “Philip,” said Bea. “This is—”

  “I remember you,” Philip said, in a voice so shocked and deep that it sent a shiver through Laura. His eyes were wide.

  Bea’s brow furrowed above her smile. “Philip, you remember Uncle Todd from Bangkok?”

  “You had red hair,” said Philip, still in that same odd, resonant voice.

  “I went back,” Uncle Todd said. “I went back for you.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Bea.

  Philip’s face was complex, some quiet struggle taking place within.

  “There was a dog,” he said with effort.

  “I remember,” said Todd Bardin, his words hasty, tripping over Philip’s.

  “What,” said Bea again.

  “Shh, both of you,” said Laura. “Let Philip tell it.”

  1972

  Chapter Fifty

  PHILIP, WALKING slowly, was nearly to the corner of the big street. Keeping his eyes front, as if they could pull the Mercedes into view. There was a movement in the corner of his vision; he turned his head to see a yellow dog on the other side of the street.

  “Nice doggy,” said Philip. It wasn’t at all nice-looking. It was a soi dog that didn’t belong to anybody, thin with patches of fur missing over its ribs; there was something wrong with one of its eyes. It had stopped walking when Philip had stopped; now it put its head up into the wind, as if it had caught an intriguing scent.

  Philip debated. Should he shout, to try to scare the dog away? But that might enrage it. He could turn around and walk back the way he had come, but even if he reached the judo building before the dog reached him, there was no assurance of sanctuary there. He looked ahead at the big street, the noisy blur of cars, tuk-tuks, bicycles. Plenty of people. He began walking again in that direction. The dog kept pace with him, tail down, unwagging, adjusting its path to a diagonal and crossing the street toward Philip, who quickened his pace, telling himself not to run.

  The dog reached Philip just before the corner, the pedestrian crowd a short distance away, the rush of traffic beyond that. Philip stood as still as possible as the dog put its muzzle down and sniffed, the leather of its nose making a dry tickle along the tops of his feet.

  “Good doggy,” Philip said again, trying to keep his voice calm. A woman was approaching on the sidewalk, yoked baskets of pomelo balanced on her shoulders. “Help me,” he said quietly. “Help?”

  She turned her head to look at him, and collided head-on with a man pushing a cart stacked high with coconuts. Fruit rolled everywhere, the two vendors scrambling to collect it; brakes squealed and passersby stopped, some to heckle, some to help. A yard from the fracas, Philip stood frozen as the dog sniffed along the inside of his ankle, investigated the back of his calf and then higher on his leg, the snout pushing the loose trouser fabric against Philip’s skin. Of their own accord, Philip’s testicles crowded up tight against his body. He moved his hands upward to get his fingers out of snapping range. He did it slowly, but the dog startled and jumped away with a low growl. The short fur of its neck stood up behind its yellow head, its angry curdled eye. Wrinkling lips back from wet teeth, it splayed its front legs and barked. Philip squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, waiting for the lunge and the impact.

  Through the quarreling commotion of the fruit vendors, he heard a sharp clap and a yell. He opened his eyes to see a man running toward them, clapping his hands together, Hi, get away.

  The dog, teeth still bared, stared at the approaching man as if reckoning the odds, backed off a bit, then turned to flee. Philip, cold all over with relief, watched the pale narrow hindquarters trotting away.

  “Did he bite you?” The man was agitated. “Did he bite you anywhere, even a nip?” Philip shook his head. “Good,” said the man. “Close call.” He smiled and Philip recognized him. It was the orange-haired man from the party earlier that summer, who’d come with the shiny lady. He was in frayed khaki shorts and a blue short-sleeved shirt, wiry ginger hair peeking out of the V at his neck. Nothing Philip’s father would wear; nothing any of the men Philip knew would wear. The man looked at Philip’s face. “Looks like something got you, though,” he said. He touched his own upper lip.

  Philip put his hand up to the swollen throbbing place on his mouth. “I got into a fight.”

  “With that Thai boxing boy you told me about?” Philip nodded. “I hope you gave him what-for.”

  “I did, I think,” said Philip. “His nose bled a lot.”

  “Good man. Why are you here alone?” As if only just noticing that this was the case.

  “Nobody came,” said Philip. To his horror, his voice wavered on the last syllable in a sob. With enormous effort, he sucked in his breath and held it.

  “Ah, well,” said the man. He looked up the street for a moment, frowning. “I’m very late to an appointment. Otherwise I’d run you home.” Philip felt the relief drain out of him. He had not considered that the man might leave him there. “They’ll come, yes?” said the man. “They’ve been late before, haven’t they?” With a smile, “Everyone’s late for everything in Thailand.”

  “Never,” said Philip, and it came out a squeak. He tried to say They always come, but his throat seemed to be shut now. He looked down at his toes, clenched them around the stems of his flip-flops, once, then twice, exactly the same pressure on each side. He watched his dirty toes go white from the pressure, then brown again, then white.

  They stood there together for a minute, the long parentless street stretching away in
both directions.

  Finally, “All right,” the man said, with a note of surrender, as though Philip had been arguing with him. “Let’s go.”

  He turned and walked away, past the coconut vendor and the pomelo woman, who were still collecting their fruit and quarreling, toward a motorbike parked at the edge of the sidewalk. Philip followed, picking his way through sticky pools of coconut water and squashed pomelo, his joints loose and swimmy with relief. The bike was at an angle, parked hastily—the man must have been riding it when he’d spied Philip and the dog.

  “Can’t very well leave you on the street,” said the man, straddling the motorbike, as if he hadn’t been about to do just that. He reached down and swung Philip up in front of him. Philip clamped the water-bottle bag between his thighs and held it there with both hands. He’d won a fight, and now a ride on a motorbike. This was turning into the best day of his life.

  The red-haired man accelerated into the traffic and immediately stopped short; Philip slid forward, nearly off the seat, the bag sliding from his grasp and falling. The man caught him with a forearm across his chest and pulled him back, kept the arm there as they rode on. He ran the motorbike between the lanes of vehicles, steering one-handed, rarely braking, swooping to dodge the people walking, the other motorbikes that were also dodging and merging, the trucks, bicycles, tuk-tuks, samlors. It could have been scary, but with the arm tight across Philip’s chest to hold him in place, it wasn’t.

  The man drove to a hotel, not the pyramid one on the water, nor the one with the good swimming pool, but a small grubby building with an arched doorway and flowering vines hanging down all around. How could hotel mean this place as well as the others? But that’s what the sign said. HOTEL. The man walked fast and Philip hurried to keep up, his thighs still humming from the ride. Through the archway into a courtyard with a pond in the middle and doors all around, the man already opening one of them with a key.