The Art of Inheriting Secrets(22)

“It doesn’t have to be decided today.” He took the bottle out of my hands and settled it back in the spot it had occupied—a perfect oval, empty of dust. “Perhaps that’s enough for one day, hmmm?” He nudged my shoulder, turning me toward the door. “One revelation at a time.”

I nodded, looking over my shoulder at the extravagant room, then up to him. I wasn’t sure I could manage more revelations at the moment. “Do you have any idea which bedroom might have been my mother’s?”

“Maybe.” He inclined his head, tapped his index finger on his mouth. “Down the hall.”

He led the way past several doors. I peeked into the open ones, seeing one that was much the worse for wear, the ceiling lying on the bed, the paper peeling from the walls in great moldy strips. We passed the top of the exquisite staircase, practically glowing in the center of the house. I stood at the top, looking down toward the foot, then up to the gallery. “Can we get there?”

“Sure. But maybe another day.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m being greedy and monopolizing you.”

His mouth quirked, ever so slightly. In the low light, his nearly black eyes shimmered, reflected, invited me to dive in, find out what might lie there. It had been so long since a man looked at me with such deep attention that it took me a while to realize what it was. “Be as greedy as you like.” His hand floated up; fingers brushed my elbow and fell away. “It’s more that you’re tiring.”

“Am I?”

“You’ve begun to limp a bit.”

“Oh.” I realized that my leg was actually aching quite a lot. “I guess I am. But I really want to see my mom’s room if we can.”

“Sure.” He offered his elbow again, and I had a swift, strong wish to lean into him, smell his shirt.

I waved my hand with a little laugh. “Lead the way.”

“This is the one I’d guess was your mum’s,” he said and pushed the half-open door wide. A cat dashed off the bed and ran underneath it, and as we came into the room, the creature broke for the hallway, a black-and-white streak. I wondered if there was a feral colony living here and if so, what would happen to them if I actually decided to renovate.

The room was less preserved than my grandmother’s and much less furnished. No paintings or perfume bottles. The bed was made, the floor relatively empty. A water leak stained most of the windowed wall, and part of the plaster ceiling hung precariously over the corner. I tried to open a bureau drawer, but it was swollen shut.

Nothing much to see here. Move along. My disappointment was much larger than it should have been, and the same swell of emotion that had caught me in the shopping center earlier pooled in my throat and fell down my face as tears. I turned away, dashing them off my cheeks, embarrassed.

It didn’t particularly help. Standing there, I was awash with missing her. Maybe this had been her room. Maybe she’d slept here a thousand times. Samir must have known I was weeping, but he wandered away, giving me space. After a couple of minutes, I took a breath and looked around. An ornate wardrobe stood against the near wall, and I tried the doors, blindly. They opened easily, and the tattered remains of a row of evening dresses hung there, held together by threads. I imagined what we might have talked about if she’d allowed me to know this part of her. The gowns would disintegrate if I touched them, but I spied something behind the clothes and, delicately as possible, moved the hems aside. It was a canvas, the colors unfaded, and I drew it out carefully. One of the dresses collapsed off the hanger, but it didn’t matter in the slightest.

It was a small canvas, no more than ten by ten inches, and clearly the work of a young artist who had not yet learned all the techniques that would later mark her painting. The tone was very dark, with little of the whimsy that later showed up in the forest paintings, but it was undeniably the same forest, only malevolent. The trees, the grass, the coalescing shadows, the eyes peering from everywhere.

“This is my mother’s work.” I handed it to him.

He held it loosely, a frown on his face. “Grim, isn’t it?”

“It really is.” I peered more closely. “What could be in the forest here? There are no wolves anymore, are there?”

“No. Maybe boars, now and then. Maybe there was something else back then. One of the older people in town will know.”

I took the painting back. “All right, I’m taking this with me, but I guess I’m ready to go.”

“Right.” As we headed down the main stairs, he stopped, his hand on the bannister, and said, “You know what you should do? Call the Restoration Diva.”

“Who is that?”

“She has a program on television about restoring old properties. Goes into these old wrecks and figures out ways for them to make money.”

“Really? Like a reality show?”

“Yeah. Look her up on YouTube.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking up, around the golden woodwork. “I bet she’d love this place. There’s a good story, a mystery”—he grinned up at me—“a pretty woman.”

I half rolled my eyes. “Flatterer.”

“Not at all.”

Television. All the past revealed. My mother’s secrets, whatever they were, whatever had driven her away. Maybe she wouldn’t like that.