Notes on an Execution(47)

“Well,” Cheryl said. “You must be Lavender.”

Cheryl’s back was narrow and straight, perched at the edge of her chair. Like a cat, Lavender thought. Regal, elegant. Cheryl was probably in her early sixties, though there was a texture to her skin that made Lavender feel baggy—when she smiled, her face showed no wrinkles, only laugh lines refined around the eyes. She wore a pair of high-heeled sandals, and her toes were painted red, like clean little cherries. When Cheryl lifted her coffee cup, Lavender noticed a streak of yellow paint across the belly of her palm.

“Congratulations,” Lavender said, awkward. “On the gallery, I mean.”

“Oh, thank you. It’s rather exciting, isn’t it? Denny, my husband, encouraged me to get into photography before he died, and I only wish I’d done it sooner.”

The barista delivered Lavender’s tea—an empty mug, accompanied by a complicated contraption of a teapot. There was a certain hardness to Cheryl, Lavender thought, but it was not unkindness. Instead, a wisdom. The sort of self-assurance that seemed to shrink Lavender inside her own skin. Just a year ago, this woman had presumably lived through September 11. Yet here she sat, her trauma enviably invisible.

Cheryl squinted, appraising. “Have you ever been painted?”

“Uh,” Lavender stumbled. “No.”

“Really,” Cheryl said. “I mean, your face. There are whole worlds in it.”

Lavender had no idea what to do with that, and Cheryl seemed to acquiesce, because she shifted, the satin of her dress pooling in her lap. Lavender could picture Cheryl’s apartment, a sudden vision in perfect clarity: high ceilings, gilded windows, art all over the walls. Everything would be vivid and intentional. A modern sofa, a refurbished oak table, trinkets from foreign countries displayed next to first-edition poetry books. The kind of alternate, moneyed life Lavender sometimes imagined for herself—a fantasy in which things had been different from the start.

“So,” Cheryl said. “You wanted to talk.”

“I wanted to ask,” Lavender said. “What his life has been like.”

“I’m glad you came to me,” Cheryl said. “And not—well, not to Ellis.”

“Does he know?”

“He’s always known he’s adopted, yes. But he doesn’t know we’re meeting. I didn’t want to add anything more to his plate.”

A thick ball appeared in Lavender’s throat, looming unwelcome.

“Is he happy?” Lavender asked.

“Oh yes,” Cheryl said. A sliver of genuine smile. “I’ve hardly met someone happier.”

“He grew up in New York City?” Lavender said.

Cheryl nodded. “He lives upstate now. We used to rent a cabin in the Adirondacks every summer—we thought it would be nice to keep him connected to his roots, and Ellis has always loved the mountains. He’s lived up there since high school graduation. He’d been accepted at NYU, but Denny and I could see he wasn’t happy. Ellis wanted something else, something beyond what the city could give him, beyond what everyone expected. He met Rachel that June. We learned in August that she was pregnant. Sometimes life has a way of telling you where you belong, don’t you think? Anyway, they opened a restaurant. Ellis bakes the most incredible sourdough.”

The heaviness built in Lavender’s glands, a suffocation. She wished, with a feverish desperation, that she’d never let Harmony talk her into this. It was too big. Too much.

“So there’s—a grandchild?”

Cheryl nodded. She leaned in, her scent lingering, expensive and tasteful, like sunflowers.

“I have an idea,” Cheryl said. “Why don’t we go over to the gallery? The opening isn’t for another hour, but everything is already set up. I can give you a private tour.”

The offer felt like a sort of generosity. A hand, outstretched. Lavender followed Cheryl from the coffee shop, her tea steaming untouched on the table.

The afternoon had grown dense, the sky a stormy gray. The street bustled and brayed—Lavender felt a distinct relief when they reached the storefront at the end of the block.

The gallery itself was just a small white room. Four walls, barren and spare. A beggar was curled on the stoop in front of the door, but Cheryl stepped confidently over him and ushered Lavender inside. In the corner of the room, two young women in button-up shirts were organizing bottles of wine, stacking glasses across a crisp tablecloth.

“I’ve titled it Homeland,” Cheryl said amiably, gesturing to the far wall, where a series of frames were lined up evenly. “It’s meant to show how we are always reinventing ourselves, creating new homes to accompany our various evolutions. The family pictured here is both evolving and permanent. I wanted to explore that paradox.”

Lavender stepped close to the photo in the center.

It was unmistakable.

Baby Packer. No longer a baby. Grown now.

Ellis Harrison looked nothing like the child she remembered. Of course, Lavender chastised herself, he had been too young then, just a blob of squishy infant. But the photograph proved it, beyond doubt. It was her son. The portrait was taken in blinding color: Ellis stood against a paneled wall, painted a vibrant shade of blue. He peered sagely into the camera, a smudge of something dark streaking across his cheek. Charcoal, or maybe kitchen grease. His freckles spattered in patterns she recognized—the Big Dipper stretched across his nose in a constellation that perfectly mirrored Lavender’s own. His eyes belonged to Lavender too, heavy-lidded, with lashes so light they were nearly transparent. She understood why Cheryl watched her, hawkish and curious. The boy was so obviously Lavender’s. Johnny had only made the smallest appearance, in the set of Ellis’s jaw.