On Turpentine Lane(77)

“I’ll paint there. Your mother and I are taking it one day at a time. Or maybe one argument at a time.”

“How about couples counseling? That couldn’t hurt,” I said.

Joel said, “Maybe Mom needs to punish you for a while. Maybe she’s in the driver’s seat and enjoying it.”

Dad looked not happy but resigned, possibly hopeful, like a man accepting the terms of his parole.



Tracy’s brother answered the front door, dressed expensively for the gym, and greeted us with “We were expecting Hank, not an entourage.”

I said, “Well, he wasn’t expecting anyone here to lend a hand. And his name isn’t Hank.”

My father said, “I’m here for my belongings.”

“And his car,” I said.

“Do you have proof of ownership for that car?” the brother had the nerve to ask.

I said, “This is offensive! He’s not stealing anything. He’s taking what belongs to him. We’re here to get the rest of his clothes and his paintings—”

“Where’s Tracy?” Joel asked.

“My sister is up in her room.”

“I’d like to meet her,” said Joel. He’d warned me of this in advance, that he needed to see who had bewitched our father, had disrespected our mother, and disrobed in front of a stranger, uninvited.

“What’s the point?” my father asked Joel.

“Closure,” I said. “Like when the victim’s family visits the prison to meet the murderer.”

“I resent that,” said Tracy’s brother.

“Don’t you think she’d want to supervise the deacquisitioning?” I asked.

“Right,” said Joel. “In case we jack the silver.”

The brother said, “Just get on with it.”

My father pointed to the eggplant-purple room straight ahead, site of the ill-fated party. “I’m taking everything that your sister didn’t commission.”

“I don’t know how I can even look at them now,” a voice said—Tracy’s—from the curving stairway.

I said, needlessly, “Joel, this is Tracy.”

“I’m the son,” he said. “We’ll be out of your way as soon as we load the truck.”

Tracy said, “Hank? Can we talk? In private?”

All eyes shifted to my father, the once-champion salesman, never at a loss for words. But all he managed was “I’d rather not.”

“Whose idea was this?” she yelled at Joel and me. “You think he’s going to be happy living in Podunk, painting whatever he feels like when the mood strikes him?”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be a crime,” I yelled back. “Painting whatever he wants to—art instead of business! Not Chagalls customized for every Jewish festival!”

“I’ve told you I’m sorry, Trace,” my father said. “I’ve explained as best I could . . .”

“His clothes are where?” asked Joel.

“And my camel overcoat?”

“I gave everything to Fernanda,” said Tracy.

“You what?” said my father.

“Clothes and shoes. Fernanda has three sons and a husband. And what doesn’t fit them she sends to Ecuador. How did I know you were coming back?”

“Passive aggression,” I said. “Very nice.”

“I just want the paintings,” my father said.

“You’re lucky I didn’t give those away, too,” she said, still preaching from midstairway. “I was this close to copywriting your Chagalls,” she said. “They were my idea. My brainchild.”

That did it. That knocked our tongue-tied, now-furious father out of his stupor. “You want them? You want to give them away? You think anyone besides you wants a fake Chagall. Poor Chagall! I should visit his grave and apologize!”

Joel said, “C’mon, Dad. We’ll take that big dark one. Faith, you get the smaller ones, and we’re outta here in two trips.”

“They have names!” Tracy shouted. “I worked hard on those titles.”

Tracy’s brother said, “Just go. Take your paintings and leave.”

“Your father loved me!” Tracy shouted. “Everything was fine until you came to our opening.”

With a red painting in hand—Bride with Rooster—I backtracked to the bottom of the stairs. “It’s my fault? How do you figure that?”

“Asking me questions—your boyfriend did—about how we met, how we became a couple. It came out sounding so cheap. So aggressive. And overly sexualized. It vilified me! And embarrassed your father!”

“If you think it’s my fault, be my guest. I’ve known Henry Frankel my entire life, and so has my brother—”

“Faith,” my dad said. “Don’t bother.”

“Is this . . . this desertion because you feel sorry for her?” Tracy yelled.

“Sorry for me?” I asked.

Joel said, “Not you. Mom. Let’s get out of here.” He and my father were inching toward the front door, father and son shouldering Dad’s largest and gloomiest painting, a triptych—peasants, Cossacks, a rabbi. Once outside, we wrapped the panels in blankets brought just for that purpose.