Once Ruth goes back to work, I fetch heavy gloves and some trash bags from downstairs, then pick my way cautiously across the carpet of junk. First order of business is to remove anything that looks like it was once food, and to air the place out. I climb over the trash, gingerly at first in case I disturb any rodents, and open the windows. It’s windy outside and it’s going to be cold up here, but that’s still better than dealing with the smell.
I do one pass of the room, scooping up plates and bowls and packets of what once contained junk food. I’m becoming less anxious about disturbing critters, and a little bolder as I move about the place, trying to formulate a plan. My gaze lands on one of the canvases, and I’m suddenly drawn to it, almost on autopilot.
This one falls somewhere in the middle of the color spectrum that Dad used—neither dark nor bright. It’s composed of muted shades of blue and green—the colors of the ocean on a cloudy day. I lift the painting, revealing the surface of a table beneath it. Ruth’s crack earlier isn’t far off the mark—I wouldn’t make much of an art critic and I don’t have an eye for visual aesthetics. Even so, I stare at the image for a while, trying to figure out what it means.
I can see part of a capital B in this painting, but I’m not convinced that’s what he was trying to represent. It could be almost anything—it could be nothing. I gaze around the room, taking in the other artworks, finding that same mysterious shape in all but one. I’m suddenly struck by the way this collection is different from the other pieces Dad produced over the past few years. Even when he painted a series, each piece was unique. Most of these canvases seem to represent a manifestation of an idea that captured my father’s imagination and refused to let go.
What on Earth am I going to do with them? Even before I start digging through the piles of trash, I can see at least half a dozen canvases scattered around the attic. I decide to clear a space and pile them up out of the way. I don’t want to damage them, so I go downstairs and retrieve some towels and sheets from the linen closet. Then I sit that first painting down on a table, facedown, resting on a towel.
That’s when I notice the date.
It’s written on the back of the frame, right at the top in the center. It’s been scrawled with a blue ballpoint pen, but my father obviously pressed too hard, and he’s etched the numbers into the wood. I recognize Dad’s awful handwriting. It’s a running joke in our family that Tim might be the doctor, but Dad has the doctor’s handwriting, because Tim writes with a beautiful, almost feminine, script and Dad’s handwriting is consistently close to illegible.
December 5, 1957.
I turn the painting over again, even more intrigued. I set it on the table and walk to pick up one of the other canvases. When I turn the second one over, there’s another date. This one is later, December 28, 1957. It’s noticeably darker. But now that I really think about it, if I were to line these paintings up in just the right order, the colors might shift gradually, like frames from an animation, or a series of time lapse images. And maybe that movement starts with the bright image mounted on the wall near the door, gradually shifting through to this calm blue/green, and working its way through to the darkest, angriest color—the black, white and gray visible on the canvas resting on an easel at the other end of the room. The colors are just so bleak.
After that I climb around the room like a madwoman, picking up every canvas and ferrying them back to the table. The dates are in the same location on every painting. On all but one, the motif is identical—two mismatched, slightly offset semicircles.
The one exception is a canvas I find behind a basket at the back of the attic. It’s less skilled than the others—perhaps it’s unfinished. On a silver background, he’s painted a white circle, with a burst of light blue at the top—like a blue sunrise over a hollow earth. This canvas has a date on the back, too—but it’s much later than the others.
January 1961.
Over the period when Dad painted these paintings, his handwriting changed, but I’m sure he painted them in order. I can track the deterioration in his mind, not just through the darkening colors in the images, but by the way the numbers on the back on the frame become more slanted, etched deeper into the wood, harder to read.
There’s another particularly dark painting, and as I approach it, something gives me pause. As I step closer to pick it up, I notice a note pinned to a clipboard on the table beside the image. The handwriting is beautiful—at first, I think Tim probably wrote it. But this couldn’t have been Tim; the date at the top of the page is March 24, 1958—Tim was only four years old. I pick up the clipboard and scan the words.
I’ve spent the past few weeks considering my options. Grieving, never once celebrating. I’ve realized that there is only one thing left to do but it is the worst, most drastic option. I just need to escape—I simply can’t face this again. The fear looms big and bold, and I cannot even convince myself to live in its shadow.
There is only one way to outrun it. There is only one way to peace. It’s bad enough that I’ve come back to this place—my children deserve for me to choose not to stay here. Even Patrick deserves better than this.
I know it is a mortal sin, and I have no idea how I’m ever going to convince myself to go through with it when I can’t even bring myself to write the word, but I have run out of options, haven’t I? It’s death, one way or another, and at least this way I have control.
May God forgive me for what I have to do.
I drop the clipboard. It clatters against the tabletop then falls with a thump to the floor, but it lands right side up and I can’t take my eyes off the page. Even so, I take a panicked step back.
Who the hell wrote that note?
It mentions Dad.
It mentions Dad.
My foreboding grows as I step toward the dark canvas. I turn it over, and there’s a whooshing sensation in my gut as I confirm that the date on the top of the frame matches the date on the note.
My mother wrote this note. My mother wrote this note and this looks like a suicide note.
My father always marked my mother’s death every April 14. At first, he took us kids to the Lake View Cemetery to leave her flowers, but as the years passed and we all started to grow up, it became more and more difficult to convince us to join him. By the time I was a preteen, he’d changed tactics; instead of dragging us all to her grave, he’d bring out a framed picture of her and we’d say a little prayer for her soul before a special dinner at home. So I’ve always known the date, but over time, I’ve forgotten the year it happened. But I do know she can’t have died in 1958, because I was only eighteen months old then—far too young to retain memories, and I can remember Grace Walsh. Besides, Dad, understandably, didn’t like to talk about her death, but he did tell us that she died in a car accident.
Maybe she was contemplating taking her own life, but she didn’t go through with it. I try to draw some comfort from this realization, but I can’t, because the broader implications of this discovery are just starting to sink in.
I cover my mouth with my hand as I spin back to the pile of canvases. Twelve other canvases so far, and each one has a date on the back. Do they all represent notes from Grace Walsh? I can barely remember where the canvases were originally. Are there other clipboards...other notes? I didn’t see them if there were, and now I don’t know where to look.
What if there are notes buried in all of this chaos? I’m going to have to sort through every single article of trash individually and with extreme care. What was already a mammoth job has now become utterly overwhelming.
I exhale then inhale, breathing in the scent of paint and dust. I could drown in panic right now—the task seems impossible, and I feel completely alone with it.
Ruth will freak out if I tell her about the note. So would Tim, and Jeremy, too, most likely. They’d insist on getting involved, or maybe even try to take over the task completely. If that happens I’m right back where I started, at home with Noah alone every single day, wishing away the hours and struggling to figure out how to manage.
No, I’ll keep the note to myself, at least until I know if there are others. It’s the smartest approach, for sure.
I’m lost in my own world as the afternoon passes. I set a goal of sorting through one particular section of mess before I go home for the day, and I dig into the task with gusto. It takes longer than I thought it would—mostly because I’m now sorting past each item as if there might be a precious, fragile note lost among the clutter. Sometimes I throw pieces of trash into the bin, then panic and fish them out to double-check. I’m so focused on the work that when I hear the front door downstairs slam, I almost jump out of my skin.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“Jesus Christ, Beth!” Ruth calls back, frustration and anger ripe in her voice. I scramble to my feet, glancing at the windows in the attic as I rise. The sun is surprisingly low in the sky, and just like that, I remember that I was supposed to be back at Chiara’s place by two-thirty. I look down at my watch.
4:30 p.m. Oh, shit.
“I lost track of time,” I exclaim, skipping down the stairs to the hallway. “I was supposed to be back at Chiara’s by—” I trail off when I finally reach the hallway and see Ruth standing there with my son on her hip. “Oh, no. Was she mad?”
“She missed Tia’s recital. She convinced herself that you’d slipped and banged your head and knocked yourself out cold or worse. She called Hunter at work in a panic, because she doesn’t have a car seat in her car so she couldn’t come check on you herself. Hunter was in court and couldn’t come home, but his secretary got a message to him, so he panicked, too. Chiara then called me because she’d run out of other options. And yes, I’m mad at you, too, because I tried to call you, and you ignored my calls as well.”
“I didn’t hear the phone,” I protest, craning my neck to peer toward the living area. The answering machine is flashing a bold angry 18 messages on the screen, and I groan. “You know it’s hard to hear the phone up there. I’m really sorry.”
Ruth passes Noah to me, then runs her hand over her hair in exasperation before she points at my chest.
“Bethany Evans,” she says abruptly. “Take your son and go home. Get a good night’s sleep, and if Chiara ever agrees to babysit for you again, take the goddamned cordless phone upstairs with you.”
“I will,” I promise. She still looks a little frantic, and I take a step toward her to rub her upper arm gently. “Honestly, I’m sorry to scare you.”
“It’s not just me,” Ruth says, abruptly pulling away. “Chiara is worried about you, too. See? It’s not just me being paranoid. We can all see something is up with you. When you didn’t answer the phone today...”
I frown at her, then my eyes widen as I long jump to a conclusion, the note upstairs too fresh on my mind.
“Seriously? You thought I’d killed myself?”
“What?” Ruth gasps, hand flat against her chest in horror. “Have you thought about doing that?”
“No! Of course not! I just...why else would you all be so worried?”
“Jesus.” Ruth slumps a little, then shoots me a fierce look. “Because you’re acting weird, Beth. You won’t tell us what’s really going on, and we’re all trying to keep an eye on you until you’re ready to explain. So be more careful.”
“I will. I’m sorry.”
“I have to go,” she sighs.
“Sure,” I say, motioning toward the doorway. I want her to leave before me, mostly because I don’t want her to go upstairs and stumble upon the note. “Go ahead, I’ll lock up. Talk to you soon.”
“Talk tomorrow,” Ruth corrects me, still frowning. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
When she leaves, I leave, too, locking the door behind me. But before I start my car and pull out of Dad’s street, I peer up at the windows that lead to the attic, wishing I could go right back to untangling its secrets.
By the time Hunter gets home, I have Noah bathed and in bed, and I’m busily cooking pasta for dinner.
“You really scared Mom today,” Hunter says as soon as he steps into the house. He sounds pissed, and that’s not an easy feat. My husband is so laid-back, it’s rare for him to react with anger to anything. Even so, I’m distracted, and only half paying attention to him as I stare down at the pot I’m stirring.
“I know, Ruth told me. I don’t know why she overreacted like that. I just forgot she had to go out, and I didn’t hear the phone,” I murmur.
The note. Did she really write the note? It has to be her. Who else would talk about “Patrick” like that? Why was Grace so distraught? Did she actually kill herself? Would Dad have lied to us? Is it too late to ask him?
“Mom didn’t overreact, Beth,” Hunter says abruptly. “You went AWOL on her and she had no idea where you were. Anything could have happened to you, for God’s sake! You knew she had something important on. Shit, the whole reason she panicked was that she assumed for you to be late like that, something drastic must have held you up.”
I wince, shaking my head.
“I know. I didn’t mean it like that. It was just... I just spoke without thinking.”
Hunter scoops up a slice of tomato from the salad on the table and pops it into his mouth, then raises his eyebrows at me.
“So I assume you’ve called her to apologize?”
“You always take her side,” I blurt. His eyebrows draw in and his mouth opens in surprise. It’s kind of true—Hunter does adore his mother and he’d defend her to his last breath, but it’s also not at all true, because Chiara and I get along and I’m a peacemaker by nature, so even when she’s a little pushy, we never argue. After eleven years, there’s been no real cause for him to take sides at all. I feel my face flush, because I have no idea why I just said that. I just feel so defensive, and I don’t really understand why they all panicked just because I lost track of time. “Just... I’ll call her. Okay? Christ.” I drop the ladle heavily into the sink, spin on my heel and leave the room.
“Where are you going?” Hunter calls incredulously.
“To bed,” I snap. “Don’t worry. I’ll call your mother first.”
I slam the door to our bedroom. I flick the lamp on, change out of my clothes and into pajamas, and then I sit on my side of the bed and pick up the phone.
But half an hour later I’m still sitting on the bed staring at the handset. I just need to dial a number I’ve known by heart for years and years and I only need to say two simple words. It should be easy. I am genuinely sorry I messed up Chiara’s schedule, and I only need to dial and tell her that.
So why does that tiny task feel as challenging as tackling a marathon on a day when I lack even the energy to climb stairs?
I put the handset back on its cradle, turn off the light and stretch out on the bed in the darkness, knowing that I’m not going to sleep.