The gallery took a red brick building on Wooster Street. Patch stepped out from the noise and took a moment for himself, watching cars roll over the cobblestone road, drivers craning to get a glimpse through the double-height windows where two hundred people Patch did not know but who seemed to know him looked over the better part of his life’s work and did not flinch at the numbers when they inquired. Charlotte had collated with Sammy, and Patch saw sketches he scarcely remembered, early work so rough he almost felt shame that people were casting their critical eye over his learning curve.
The stars were the missing girls, titled only by their first names, from Lucy to Anna, Ellen to Eloise. People vied to stand before them, to read the small notes beside that told not nearly enough about their lives.
They stood in their coterie, monochrome blazers and stiff shirts and easy smiles. And soon enough there were bids for the conjures of his mind; a lady from Sacramento paid a small fortune for a sketch he had completed in the bones of a night so starved he had gathered the carpet in an old motel room and slept on the bare boards beneath as moonlight served black mold on the aluminum coping. There was no glamour to any of it.
He had asked the lady why she wanted it.
“Can’t you see how beautiful you make tragedy?”
“No,” he said, and Sammy escorted him out, worried he might sully each sale.
Through the glass he watched his daughter, luminous in a pink dress that recalled her mother, and for a moment he missed Misty, the pain still able to catch him out, like the loss would forever be fresh.
“You’re skipping out on your own showing?”
Patch turned and saw her, his smile genuine for the first time that night. “Hey.”
“Hey, kid.”
He hugged Saint tight, held on for a little too long because when he broke he saw that concern there and wondered if he would always be fourteen to her.
“I like the eye patch.”
He reached up and touched it with an absent mind, his daughter insisting that night would be the closest he ever came to a wedding as she tossed the skull and crossbones at him before she left.
“I’m surprised you made it,” he said.
“I’m working something nearby.”
“Of course.”
“And I wanted to see you. To see your success. Lot of people in there.”
“Sammy.”
“Right.” She moved close to the window, cupped her hands around to block the glare. “For a moment I thought that was Misty Meyer. Goddamn she’s…”
“I worry it’s for nothing. All of it.”
“We’ve been here so many times, Patch.”
“I feel like I’m acting. When I’m being a father, when I’m being a friend. When I make something to eat or take a shower. I’m playing a part in a story deep down you know cannot end well.”
“So how does it end?” she said.
He looked up toward Washington Square, his boots on the flagstone. “How about on a beach someplace far from here.”
“Or a ship.”
“Or some faraway town—”
“Making honey.”
“Is that what you kids are calling it now?”
She laughed, a teenager once again.
“Sometimes I convince myself she wasn’t real. We know Tooms is crazy, he’ll say anything, but she…you never found a thing. Nothing. So if she wasn’t real, I’d take that now. Even if I had to look back at so much loss it can’t even be counted.”
“You ever think maybe it wasn’t loss.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“She opened your world with her eyes. You’ve lived. And how many of us can say that, really?”
She saw the painting hanging in the center.
Grace Number One.
He would not sell it.
“Look at us, Saint. Look where we are.”
“Did you find out?” she said.
He looked puzzled.
“If rose trees grow in New York City. Don’t tell me you forgot, kid.”
He smiled. “Tell me you still play piano now.”
“I do. I worried I’d forget, but turns out some things just stay with you, you know.”
Though the street filled only with the sounds of cars and the quiet rush of steam from vents, he took her in his arms and slowly began to move with her.
“Are you buzzed?” she said.
“A little. I blame Van Winkle.”
“Fucking Sammy.”
Patch pressed his head to hers. “I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you.”