I call Jeremy as soon as I get home, partly to ask about the art supplies for Dad, partly because I can’t stand the silence in my house. He rambles for forty-five minutes about some research results that I can’t even begin to understand. I try to make noises at the right times, but mostly I’m just glad to have his voice in my ear.
“I better go,” he says eventually, sounding pleased by my interest in his work.
“Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Right. There was something else...”
Jez is happy to take painting supplies on his way to the nursing home tomorrow, but he probably won’t have time to go all the way to Dad’s house to get them, so he’ll just stop at a store near his campus. Then he asks about the house, and I tell him I’m making progress. When he hangs up, I call Chiara immediately, unthinkingly, just to fill the silence. It’s only when she answers that I remember she’s angry with me.
“I’m sorry,” I say as soon as I’ve identified myself.
“Beth, of course I forgive you,” my mother-in-law coos, because she’s a living saint. “I’m just worried about you. It’s not like you to be absentminded. Are you quite sure you’re okay?”
“Just a lot happening at the moment,” I murmur. My eyes still feel puffy from my crying at the nursing home. It feels like every corner of my brain is full of worries, and I’m worn out by the bombardment. It’s hard even to summon the energy to dismiss Chiara’s concerns.
“I know I’m your dreadful monster-in-law,” Chiara says after a pause. She’s trying to make me laugh. It’s not funny at all, because she’s perfect, and if anyone is the monster here, it’s me, but I force a chuckle. “After all these years, I also hope I’m your friend, and I love you like a daughter. If you need to talk, I’m here. Anytime. Day or night.”
I mumble another thanks and get off the phone as fast as I can. I take a similar approach to Hunter when he comes home. He’s pleased because I apologized to his mother, and he’s animated because he had a win today in a messy custody case. Hunter suggests we watch some television together but I have a sudden urge to retreat from him—he’s in such a good mood and I know that my bad mood will sour him if I don’t leave. I tell him I’m tired and turn in for an early night but I’m still lying wide awake when he joins me in bed at eleven. I pretend to be asleep as he wraps me in his arms. At first, I’m comforted by the warmth of his body against mine, and for a while I feel sleep softening the edges of my consciousness.
But it’s not long before Hunter’s breath is deep and even in my ear, and rest is eluding me. I really thought five months of parenthood had taught me what sleep deprivation felt like. Since Noah was born, I’ve survived on short stretches of rest, which of course is far from ideal, but I’ve always managed just enough sleep to function.
Now, though, when I close my eyes, Dad’s paintings appear and the images chase away sleep altogether. The colors cycle through my brain, the imagery flickering through shades, but always vivid. The shape of the motif represents intrigue and mystery and a puzzle my mind seems convinced it can solve if I just focus on it hard enough, and so I concentrate and I wonder and I analyze. The hours tick by, but even though I drift toward sleep, I don’t sink beneath it. My mind is too active and I can’t shut it down. I’m completely stuck on the notes and the paintings and hard as I try, I cannot think of anything else.
I get up for a cup of tea, feed Noah, and then return to bed. It’s now 3 a.m. and I can’t even close my eyes. I’m wired as if I’ve had ten cups of coffee, so wound up I can’t lie still. Images again take shape in the darkness above me, but this time it’s not Dad’s paintings I see. Instead, I’m replaying memories of Grace.
It makes sense that my mind would go here when I’m agitated. The mere thought of her has made me feel safe and secure in a way that’s hard to replicate in the adult world.
I’m small all of a sudden, small enough to curl up on her lap and stretch my hand up to touch her dark hair. It’s soft against my fingers, and I love the way she smells—like flowers and cake and sunshine—like all of the best things in life. She finishes the story and I beg her for another, and she laughs to herself and reaches for another book, and another, and another. And of course she does, because I know that this is our pattern each night. Just one story, sweet girl, she tells me, but it’s always five or six or if I’ve been really good, more.
Then she’s tucking me in, and she bends to kiss my forehead, and maybe I almost drift off to sleep then—but in a heartbeat I’m startled awake again. Am I here, or am I there? The line between the vision and dreams and my reality becomes thinner.
Now I’m standing with my siblings in the cold morning light of a living space I don’t know, but I do know it’s ours, because the heavy chest from Dad’s attic is there, and Dad is sitting atop it. Jeremy and Ruth are sobbing and so am I, but Tim is gone—I think he’s hiding behind the sofa. I throw myself at Dad at the same time Jeremy and Ruth do. Dad’s crying along with us, and I sense his panic as he tries desperately to comfort us. He’s holding me awkwardly—I’m half across his lap, squished beside Ruth, and now my hands are resting on the carvings on the top of the wooden chest.
I can feel that wood beneath my hands. I run my fingers through the engraving, tracing patterns and shapes. I miss Momma so much, I don’t think I can survive it. Where is my safe place now? The entire world has changed simply because she is gone.
I startle and then it’s gone—all of it is gone, and I’m staring at my ceiling in the predawn light, bewildered and more than a little unnerved. I tell myself I was just dreaming, but those moments I relived were real moments. Can you dream your memories?
Maybe not, but you can definitely hallucinate them.
The more I think about that, the more distressed I become.
“Hey,” Hunter murmurs sleepily in my ear. “Are you cold? You’re shaking.”
“Can you meet me at Dad’s after work?” I blurt.
“Sure?”
“Maybe Wallace could come, too. There’s something I want to bring home and we’re going to need help carrying it.”
I leave Noah with Chiara this next morning and get back to work on the attic, but despite making some small headway in the chaos, I don’t uncover more notes. I do, however, organize things so that we can get the chest out. I can’t lift it on my own—it’s far too heavy—but I clear a path so that by the time Wallace and Hunter arrive, they are able to get into the attic and lift the chest out, without climbing over piles of trash to do so.
“You should have told me how bad it is up here,” Hunter mutters as he passes me with the chest.
“I told you it was a mess,” I protest. He gives me a pointed look.
“This isn’t a mess, Beth. This is a disaster. You shouldn’t be doing this on your own.”
Wallace withholds comment, but he’s a softhearted guy and he and my dad have been close friends for years, and I’m not surprised to see him on the verge of tears as he looks around. They manage to get the huge chest down the stairs with a bit of persistence and patience, and Wallace then drives it back to our place in the back of his SUV. Hunter puts it right into place in the center of our living area and comments that it fits beautifully.
“When did he build this?” he asks.
“Long before we moved to Bellevue. It’s been in our house for as long as I can remember.”
“He was an artist long before he learned to paint, wasn’t he?”
I think this is why I simply had to retrieve this chest today. It’s a piece of Dad’s talent, something physical I can touch that ties the memories of my childhood to my present. After we’ve eaten and put Noah to bed, Hunter retires to his study to catch up on some work, and I get cleaning supplies out.
I wipe the layers of dust from the intricate carving on the lid, oil the hinges and polish the outer wood back to its once-gleaming shine. I have no plans for the chest beyond cleaning it up, so I open it and peer inside, wondering what I might store in there. The obvious options are blankets or maybe Noah’s winter clothes once it warms up, and so although the inside isn’t particularly dusty, I decide to clean it out, too. As I’m wiping inside, I feel the base give a little against the pressure of my hand. When I press harder, the base pops up, and I can lift it out of the chest—revealing a cavity beneath. I’m frowning as I stare down at what I find: a beige photo album and a blue velvet ring box. I reach for the ring box first, and open it to find a tarnished pair of rings—both silver, one adorned with a chip of a stone, the other plain.
It’s the first ring that catches my eye, and I shake it out of it’s box and into my palm. It’s hardly an elaborate piece of jewelry, but it is somewhat unique. The setting is simple, four prongs that hold the stone against a rounded band. I polish it on my clothes, and hold it up to the light. As I turn it so that I’m staring at its side, I suddenly realize I’m looking at the very object Dad’s tried to capture in the last painting in his series—the one from 1961. From the side, the ring is simply a round circle with a blue burst of light at the top. All that’s missing from my view is the silvery gray of his background, but there’s no denying that this was his inspiration. It has to be my mother’s engagement ring, and I feel an awful, miserable clench in my chest at the thought of Dad keeping this for all these years, locked away where it was safe.
The album is plain and I have to guess which side is the front. Before I open it I know that it will be full of photos of Dad and Grace, and when I turn the face page, I see that I’m right. It’s snaps from a simple wedding ceremony. Dad is instantly recognizable, as is my mother. She’s reed-thin, wearing a long-sleeved wedding gown, with an illusion neckline and collar, and overlain with lace detail. There’s a lace cap pinned into her dark hair, with a long veil trailing off, falling around her shoulders.
Both Grace and Dad look far too young to be married—but their expressions are joyous, the shining hope in their eyes almost painful to think about when I consider they had only a handful of years together, most of which were focused on us kids. They were probably short on money when they married—the last few photos have them cutting a homemade cake in what looks suspiciously like the church vestibule, and there’s only a handful of guests.
Wedding photos only take up a few pages, and then I turn the page to find a yellowed piece of paper has been folded and placed loosely against the next page. I open it and nearly drop it when I discover it’s my mother’s death certificate. There are so many fields—most typed, some scrawled in ink. My gaze flies over the page, soaking in the details.
Grace Vivienne Walsh—nee Gallagher.
Mother’s name: Vivienne Mary Gallagher.
Father’s name: Francis Ian Gallagher.
Spouse: Patrick Timothy Walsh.
Mother of Timothy, Ruth, Jeremy, Bethany.
Date of death: Undetermined. April 1958.
That simply cannot be right. How on earth could the date of death be undetermined if she died in a car accident? And if Grace died in 1958, I was only eighteen months old when we lost her and it is highly unlikely I’d remember her at all. But I do remember her. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can summon the feeling of being held in her arms. My God—the thought that I’ve manufactured those memories leaves me feeling physically ill.
Those memories are a part of how I understand myself. I was loved by Grace. I was nurtured by Grace. On some level, I know myself as someone who began her life in the arms of a woman who adored her.
What if I made it all up?
I don’t believe it for a second—the memories are far too vivid. I’m about to fold the paper and to set it aside when a new thought strikes me, and I scan down the page again, looking for a cause of death. I fully expect to be at least partly reassured by the words motor vehicle accident or something similar, but that’s not what I find.
Unable to confirm due to decomposition of body.
I fold the paper carefully and set it down on the floor beside my legs. I’m dizzy and confused, not sure what to make of my discovery. It was obviously some time before Grace’s body was found. This definitely doesn’t fit Dad’s story about a car accident, but it also doesn’t indicate that she died by suicide. Unless she ran away somewhere before she ended her life...?
Another wave of nausea hits me. Poor Dad. My God. Poor Dad.
The room is spinning so I close my eyes, trying to calm myself down. Just then I hear a sound in the hallway and I realize that Hunter is probably done for the night. He was already hesitant about me cleaning out that attic, even just upon a single glimpse of the mess. If he sees this mind-blowing discovery, maybe he’ll try to insist I leave the job to my siblings. He loves me—he’s trying to protect me—but more than ever, I need to get to the bottom of this.
I stuff the ring box and the album back into the bottom of the chest and slip the base back in place, and despite my shaking hands, finish closing the lid as Hunter returns to the room.
“Want to watch a movie?” he asks me, sniffling a yawn. “I don’t feel like working tonight after all.”
“Sure,” I say. My heart is racing and my palms are sweaty, so I scramble to my feet and flash him what I hope is a convincing smile. “Let me just go wash up. I’m all dusty from cleaning this thing.”