Kristen
“We never intended to deceive anyone,” Cecilia said. “We were young. There was a competition locally. One of the galleries invited local artists to display one work in a summer exhibition.”
“This was the exhibition where Dad was discovered?” Kristen ignored the pastry that Todd had put in front of her. “Are you saying Dad submitted The Girl on the Shore? That doesn’t make sense. He must have had paintings of his own. Why submit yours?”
She’d taken a shower and changed into a cool linen dress. She felt tired, but slightly more human than she had when she’d arrived. And she was too captivated by the story unfolding to think about her own feelings right now. The questions were stacking up in her head. She wanted to know why Lily was here. She wanted to know what was happening between her and Todd (she’d seen the way their fingers had brushed and the way they looked at each other), and she wanted to know more about Seth.
But first she needed to know more about this painting and the secrets her parents had been keeping.
How was it that the people closest to you were sometimes the ones it turned out you knew least about?
“He didn’t submit it,” her mother said. “I did. And there was a mix-up. The initials were CL. The gallery thought it was Cameron’s. It was a big exhibition. They were dealing with a large number of paintings.”
Kristen was struggling to absorb it. “But when they made the mistake, why didn’t you correct them?”
“We didn’t know about it. We dropped off the paintings and went back to doing what we were doing, which was mostly painting and doing up Dune Cottage, which had been sadly neglected. We went back to the gallery two weeks later for the opening night of the exhibition, and the award presentation and that was when they announced Cameron as the winner. When we realized which painting had won, we were completely thrown. We didn’t know what to do, and there was no opportunity for reflection. There were photographers and people wanting to interview him and see more of his work—it was crazy. Impossible to describe.” Cecilia shook her head. “Suddenly he was the focus of all this fuss and attention and we couldn’t find the right time to tell them that it wasn’t his painting. It would have created so much complication. You’re probably thinking it would have been easy to just tell them they’d made a mistake, but at the time it didn’t feel easy. We were trapped in the moment. I don’t expect anyone to understand.”
“I understand,” Todd said. “Sometimes circumstances force you to make an on-the-spot decision that you later regret. It happens.”
Kristen glanced at her son. Was he talking about his engagement to Amelie? They’d get to that later. Right now, her focus was her mother.
“Exactly.” Cecilia sent Todd a look of gratitude. “Anyway, the whole thing spiraled. An important gallery owner from Boston asked to see more of his paintings, so Cameron showed him his work. It took off from there.”
Kristen thought about The Girl on the Shore. “But his work was so different from yours. They didn’t question it?”
“Cameron was experimenting a great deal back then. Style and medium. There were oils, pastels, watercolors, charcoal—he painted and drew nonstop and at that stage the style that everyone would later recognize as his, hadn’t fully developed.”
It was an extraordinary story, and one that impacted on more than just her father.
“But it was your painting.” Kristen was struggling to incorporate this new information into everything she’d always believed. She knew that her father had been discovered by an influential gallery owner—she didn’t know that it was her mother’s painting that had been the reason for that initial interest. Why hadn’t he ever told her that? She’d thought they were close. She’d thought she knew him well. Evidently not. And she also hadn’t really known her mother. “It could have been you. It should have been you. This is awful. I never knew. It must have been hard for you.”
“It was difficult for both of us. Cameron was insecure about his work in those early days—imposter syndrome isn’t uncommon among creative people. And the knowledge that it was my painting that had given him his big break nagged at him. He never felt good enough. Always felt he had to prove himself.” Cecilia stared at the basket of pastries that Todd had placed on the table. “That insecurity never really left him, although eventually he learned to live alongside it.”
“But he robbed you of an opportunity.” Thinking of it made Kristen feel terrible. She’d had no idea. Her father had never once mentioned it, even though they’d talked all the time.
“He didn’t rob me of anything,” Cecilia said. “It was a mistake, and I could have corrected it, but I chose not to.”
“But your career took a back seat to his.”
“That was my choice.” Cecilia twisted the ring on her finger. “I could have focused on my own work, but I preferred to focus on his. In those early days I still painted, but for my own pleasure. The truth is I would have hated the attention Cameron had to deal with, and also the pressure. I enjoyed being engaged with his career.”
“Dad must have felt guilty though.”
“He did. He needed constant validation. Constant confirmation that he was as good as people said he was. And he was aware of that.” Cecilia paused. “He used that as the excuse for the affair he had.”
Her father had an affair? Who was this man? Not the person she’d thought, clearly.
Kristen sat in silence while her mother told her all of it. The cottage. The woman who had been with her father. The subsequent pressure on their relationship.
And she felt guilty because she remembered how distraught she’d been when her parents had separated, and how difficult. She’d punished her mother when she hadn’t deserved it.
Emotions sat like a hard stone in her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t your burden to carry. Parents don’t always reveal every aspect of their relationship to their children.”
Kristen thought about the fact she hadn’t yet told Todd the truth about her reason for being here.
“But if I’d understood—”
“You were a child, Kristen. A child can’t possibly understand the nuances of adult relationships. And it was easier not to tell people. Easier to recover from it, and we did recover. We had many good years after that. Many.” Cecilia smiled. “A marriage can hit a rocky patch, but survive. It depends on whether what you have is strong enough to be saved. In the end, I wanted to save it. And so did your father. We never regretted that.”
Something about her mother’s tone and the look in her eyes made her wonder if the words were meant for Kristen.
Kristen thought about Theo. About their marriage. They’d definitely hit a rocky patch. Could their marriage be saved? Did she want that? Did Theo want that?
It all felt too much to deal with right now.
“What happened to The Girl on the Shore after that competition?”
“We refused to sell it to anyone. We wanted the mix-up to end right there, so we took it back to the cottage. We agreed that we would never mention it again and never again show the picture. Cameron already had more attention than he could handle, and everyone seemed to have forgotten about that particular painting. And for a while it was fine. No one ever asked about it, and moving forward, everything was Cameron’s work. All The Girl on the Shore really did was open a door. After a while we barely ever thought about that painting. We certainly never imagined that anyone else would remember it.”
“But Jeff knows about it. How?”
“I’m not sure, but Jeff’s father was at that first exhibition. He was an art critic with an interest in emerging artists. He saw The Girl on the Shore and from then on took a close interest in Cameron’s career. He saw that his subsequent work was different, and he had his suspicions. We had an answer for that of course. We said that Cameron had grown—matured. That his style had changed. And all that was true. But Jeff’s father raised it from time to time. He was sure it was someone else’s painting.”
Kristen pushed her plate away. She no longer felt like eating.
“And he told Jeff. So when Jeff asked me about it, he was basically digging for dirt.” She felt a sense of hurt and betrayal. She also felt foolish. She’d fallen for his charm. She’d believed that his interest in her was genuine. It hadn’t occurred to her for a moment that he was using her. She thought about the attention he’d paid her. The interest he’d shown.
She’d mistaken interrogation for intimacy.
How far would he have gone? Would he have slept with her to get the answers he’d been seeking? Maybe. And she’d been so lonely, so desperate for human connection that she wouldn’t ever have thought to question his motives.
“Jeff can’t know for sure,” Cecilia said. “And neither did his father. Whenever he asked, we said that the painting had been damaged years before and no longer existed. And because Jeff’s father would never let the subject go, we agreed we would destroy it. Cameron assured me that he had. When you told me on the night of the party that someone was asking about it, I panicked.”
“That was one of the reasons you left in such a hurry?”
“Yes. I’d recently found out that Cameron hadn’t sold this place. I no longer trusted that he’d destroyed the painting. Given that Jeff was asking about it, I needed to find out for myself.”
Kristen shook her head. “And he hadn’t.”
“No. And I don’t understand why. That part is still a mystery, and always will be.”
“I don’t think it’s a mystery,” Todd said. “The painting is yours. He loved you and he loved the painting. Why else would he have kept it hanging here in pride of place? He didn’t want to destroy it. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It meant something to him. To both of you.”
“Todd’s right,” Kristen said. “Dad was sentimental. Think about his office—every surface is covered in family photos and bits and pieces that the two of you picked up on your travels. He would never have destroyed anything as beautiful and important as that painting. And I’m glad he didn’t. It’s precious, Mom, not just because it plays a part in your history but because it’s a wonderful painting.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand.” Todd leaned forward. “Why is this Jeff person so interested? Why does it even matter? It’s not as if you sold it and passed it off as an original Cameron Lapthorne. No crime was committed.”
“That’s true,” Cecilia said, “but if the story had come out it would have damaged your grandfather’s reputation. His integrity. It still would.”
Todd reached for the coffeepot and poured it into mugs. “But even if he saw the painting, which he won’t, he has no way of proving Grandpa didn’t paint it.”
“Not for sure, no. I’m the only person who knows the truth. And now you do, too, of course.” Cecilia felt a flicker of anxiety. “I should probably do what Cameron was supposed to do and destroy the painting. That would put an end to it.”
“No!” Lily half rose to her feet. “You can’t do that. And everything you say makes sense—that it never had any real impact on Cameron’s career. That part of its history isn’t important. It’s done and in the past. But the painting is special.”
“I agree. It would be criminal to destroy it.” Kristen finally voiced her thoughts. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but one stood out. “Why didn’t you paint more yourself? You clearly had a future if you’d wanted one. Your work was the one they picked as the winner of that exhibition.”
“Art isn’t only about painting, as I suspect Lily has discovered over the past week.” Cecilia smiled at Lily. “There are many ways of expressing yourself creatively. When we bought Lapthorne Manor, I started experimenting with the gardens and treated the land around the house as my canvas. I found it more thrilling than painting because it changed constantly. I designed those gardens from scratch, and I had as much satisfaction from planting the borders as I ever did painting a canvas. More, in fact because the garden was alive. Living art. I was able to watch it change with the seasons and the years.”
“The gardens are spectacular.” She hadn’t ever thought of them as art. But they were, of course, she could see that now.
And she realized how much she had to learn about her mother. She’d made so many assumptions, and so many of them had been false. And perhaps the biggest assumption was that her mother didn’t care about her.
Her mother cared deeply, which was one of the reasons she’d kept so much of this from her. But Kristen wished she’d known. Maybe it would have been painful to hear the truth, but she would rather that than not having the full picture.
She glanced across the table at her son, and decided that she was going to be honest with him about the situation with Theo. And she was going to call Hannah. She was going to try and help them to understand but not today, because she needed to rest and make the most of this time with her mother.
She’d called her mother out of desperation, never expecting to be offered comfort or sanctuary and yet here she was being given both. Another example of life taking an unexpected direction.
Her marriage might be imploding, but there were other relationships that were important to her. Other relationships that she needed to nurture.
Her mother smiled at her across the table and Kristen smiled back.
The past was behind them, and it was up to them to mold the future. The potential for a good relationship was right there in front of them.
All they had to do was take it.