The Stroke of Winter(47)

“Why, yes,” he said, finally, nodding. “I believe I do know her. That’s Daisy. Daisy Erickson.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



Wyatt and Tess locked eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Wyatt said, “Do you remember anything about her?”

“You bet I remember,” Joe said, looking closer at the painting. “She was a schoolteacher. And a friend of your mother’s.”

Wyatt’s mouth dropped open. “Mom knows the woman in this portrait?”

Joe nodded. “They were great friends. All throughout school.”

Tess squinted at the painting to get a better look. She had assumed the woman was a contemporary of her grandfather’s. From his era. Joe’s era. But Joe was telling them this woman, Daisy, was much younger. Her parents’ age.

That shone a whole new light on things.

“Is she still here in Wharton?” Tess asked, raising her eyebrows. “She might like to see this painting by the great master.” Maybe this whole mystery would evaporate into thin air, just like that.

But Joe shook his head. “No, Daisy has been gone from here for a long time. Decades, I think. Kathy was upset when she left.”

“Oh,” Tess said, drawing out the word. “Do you know where she went? The Twin Cities, maybe?”

Joe looked off into the past. He shook his head. “That, I couldn’t tell you,” he said.

“What about this one?” Tess said, pointing to the second painting. “Is that her, too? Daisy? And her husband?”

Joe looked closely at the second painting. “You know, I think it is. That looks like old Frank right there.” He pointed to the dour, angry figure depicted in the living room.

The old man turned to Tess and Wyatt then, a look of confusion on his face. “What a funny thing for Sebastian to paint. It’s not a very happy scene, is it?”

No indeed, thought Tess.

Joe sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked from Wyatt to Tess. “It’s been a nice day, kids.”

Wyatt glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly two thirty. “We should get you home, Pop,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll bet you’re getting tired out.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Joe said, looking at his watch. “Sophie will want me home for dinner. You’re both welcome to have a meal with us, of course. You know how she loves company.”

His sweet face tugged at Tess’s heartstrings. She knew from Wyatt that Joe’s wife had been gone for many years. But who could say she wasn’t still with him? Watching over her vulnerable, kind husband as his mind slowly faded. Tess brushed away a tear.

Wyatt turned to her as he helped Joe into his coat. “Why don’t you ride along?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “We can call my mom on the way back. Maybe she can shed some light on the situation. She might still be in touch with Daisy, for all we know.”

That was a good idea, Tess thought, but she had something to do first.

“You warm up the car and get Joe buckled in,” Tess said. “My dad wants me to take some photos of the paintings. I’ll go do that now and get them back into the safe. Then I can join you.”

With that, she carried the two paintings back into the drawing room, pulled the others out of the safe, and propped them up against the wall, side by side. In order. If she was going to send these photos to her dad, she wanted him to get the full impression of the “storyboard.”



During the drive, the three of them chatted about the weather, how odd it was to have so much snow in Wharton.

“Back in my day, we used to shovel a path on the ice all the way to the island,” Joe said. “We used to skate back and forth. Drove our mothers crazy. The ice was never safe, you see. But we were rascals.” He gazed out the window with a slight smile on his face, remembering. “Where are we going?” he said, finally.

“We’re going back to your apartment at Bayview,” Wyatt said, his voice tender. “We had a nice lunch, took a drive to Wharton, and now we’re headed back to Salmon Bay.”

“Salmon Bay?” Joe asked. “But . . . why are we going there? We’ve always lived in Wharton. On Front Street. Sophie is waiting for me.”

“No, Pop,” Wyatt said. “You live in a nice place in Salmon Bay now. It’s real swanky. You’ll see when we get there.”

Confusion washed over the old man’s face. All at once, he wasn’t the impish flirt he had been all day. Tess’s heart broke a little bit to see it. Wyatt had warned her about the dementia. She hadn’t seen too much of it during their lunch. But now she knew what he had meant.

“Don’t worry, Pop,” Wyatt said. “We’ll get you home just fine.”

“Okay, son,” Joe said, turning his trusting eyes to Wyatt. Tess could see he was still confused, but, almost like a child, he trusted his grandson to get him home. Wherever that home might be.

When the conversation lulled, Joe nodded off.

Tess remembered how Eli used to do that, as an infant. He’d be gurgling and smiling one minute, drifting off to sleep the next. It wasn’t so different with elderly folks. It was almost as if, the nearer people are to the other side, whether they’ve just come into the world or are close to leaving it, the more sleep they need. And she wondered, too, if it was really sleep at all. If it wasn’t simply their way of touching what was behind the veil. Infants reaching back to where they had been. Seniors reaching forward to where they were soon going.