Thanks for this, Maya texted Steven at nine a.m., which felt like the earliest she could reasonably text someone she didn’t know very well.
It’s beautiful, she added, referring to Cristina’s painting as well as to the warm home it portrayed. Maya had forgotten. These days, when she thought of Frank’s cabin, she thought only of the time she had lost, dirt on her knees and hands, and fear as she ran through the woods to her car.
What she’d forgotten was the wonder of entering Frank’s cabin for the first time, but Cristina’s painting reminded her, the loving details of the fireplace, the natural wooden beams. Somehow, though she often dreamed of it, Maya hardly remembered (while awake) how the place looked and all the thoughts that had flown through her head as she first took it in. Now the table in the painting brought back the memory of sitting across from Frank over bowls of some soup he’d made. That tantalizing smell, her sudden hunger—it was as if the place had cast a spell.
But Maya never tried the soup, did she?
Then—as now—her father’s story leapt to mind.
This time it came to her in the form of the hymn. So they mingled their deceit with me . . . and they made me eat their food . . . I forgot I was the son of kings.
And as it had then, the story felt like a warning. What was it she’d forgotten? The last thing she remembered of that night—just before finding herself in the rain—was thinking of Pixán’s true home and the beginning of a realization that never came because Frank put a stop to it.
Her phone pinged, disrupting her train of thought.
It was Steven; he’d responded to her text with a thumbs-up.
Wondering if you might be around to talk about this later? she wrote back. Maybe I could buy you a drink?
She waited.
She still hadn’t slept. She walked around the neighborhood on aching legs, hoping to exhaust herself, and her body was certainly tired enough, but her mind and heart galloped on. The streets were cold and quiet. The snow in the gutters had melted and frozen again into a jagged slush the same gray as the sky.
Dan hadn’t written back, and now it had been two days. Maya would have been worried if his social media accounts weren’t public, or rather she’d have been a different kind of worried. She told herself that at least she knew he was okay and tried to leave it at that. Because she couldn’t let herself think about his silence and what it meant. Not now. Back home, she shivered on the floor of the shower, cloaked in steam, but she couldn’t warm up. She told herself this had to be the worst of it. Her withdrawal could only get better from here. She crawled into bed afterward and passed out for forty-five minutes, only to jolt up at the sound of her phone.
Sure, Steven had texted back.
Maya disentangled herself from the sheets wrapped around her torso and typed, Great! What time?
I get off work at five. How’s Patrick’s? Patrick’s was the pub around the corner from the museum.
Sure! Maya texted back. Thank you!
She ventured out of the dim Airbnb room to find her mom putting up a Christmas tree in the living room.
“There you are!” Brenda said, smiling. “Just in time to help with decorations.”
Maya scowled.
Her mom flinched. They had always decorated the tree together when Maya was young. A crate of ornaments sat on the floor, silver tinsel spilling through the slats. Brenda was doing all she could to make amends with her daughter. Other than apologize, it seemed.
Maya was still mad but unwilling to argue further. Her mom wasn’t the only person who could pretend like nothing was wrong. “I have plans,” she said. “I’m getting together with Erica O’Rourke.”
“Erica from the school newspaper? Didn’t realize you were still in touch.”
Maya wasn’t. She hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from high school beyond the occasional email, but Erica was someone she had been friendly with and who still lived in town. A plausible lie. “We’re going for coffee. Catching up.”
Her mom peered at her over teal reading glasses.
Maya had washed her hair and clothes and put on makeup. She felt almost refreshed after her nap.
“Why don’t I drive you?”
“No,” Maya said a little too quickly. If her mom had any idea what she was up to, she’d get on the phone with Dr. Barry.
Brenda narrowed her eyes.
“I could use the walk is all. We’re meeting at that new café on North Street—it’s less than a mile.” She didn’t wait for her mom to try to stop her. “I’ll only be a few hours,” she said as she slipped out the door.
Patrick’s was an Irish pub that had been around as long as Maya could remember. Blessedly dark inside, with exposed brick walls and a long row of beers on tap. It smelled like onion rings. Maya was a few minutes early, so she ordered an extra-dry martini, even though she was still hungover from last night’s gin. Alcohol was the one thing she knew would loosen the vise that withdrawal had clamped around her head. She took her martini to a small table in the corner and drank most of it in a few gulps that burned the whole way down, then faded to a pleasant warmth. The bar was quiet, most of the booths empty. Classic rock played on the speakers. She raised a hand as Steven walked through the door.
He got himself a beer and came over. He seemed less guarded than when they’d met, but still reserved, or maybe just shy. He was at least a decade older than Cristina and was wheezing from his walk from the museum, but he wore a Fitbit and a nice wool coat over his security guard uniform. He respectfully removed his hat, a tan beanie, upon entering, revealing his polished-looking head. Maya had sensed by the strength of his reaction to her earlier questions that he been in love with Cristina, and wondered how she had felt about him.
“Hey, thanks for meeting me,” she said.
“No problem, happy to talk about Cristina’s work. I want more people to see it.” He set his phone on the table and pulled up a picture. “I brought another one to show you.” The painting was of a cold and severely shaded landscape that might have been the salt flats again, but flooded this time, pewter water mirroring an inhospitable sky. “This one’s my favorite,” Steven said. “You really have to see it in person, but even here you can see how striking it is.”
“Beautiful. She really was talented.”
“I’m trying to get ahold of all her work, but it’s been hard since I’m not family. Her paintings belong in a museum.”
“I agree,” Maya said carefully. “Especially her last one. Interesting how different that one is.”
“Isn’t it?”
Maya nodded thoughtfully and sipped her drink. “Did she ever tell you about Frank’s cabin?”
Steven deflated a little as he gathered what Maya was here to talk about, and she wondered why he’d come. Was it to talk about Cristina’s work—to keep it alive in the world—or might he have thought Maya was asking him on a date? She was, after all, his type, it seemed. “Sure,” he said, “she mentioned it.”
Maya waited.
He sipped his beer, a sour look on his face.
She felt for him and would have dropped the questions if it weren’t her life that was in danger. “Cristina must have really liked it there,” she said leadingly. “To have painted it that way . . .”
Steven sighed, resigned. “You could say that,” he said. “The cabin was one of the first things she told me about him. I remember it impressed her, and to be honest it impressed me too. I mean, who else our age owns a home? Not to mention builds their own? But then the more I heard about him, the less impressed I was. Honestly, the guy’s a loser.”
“Why?” she said, hiding her agreement.
Steven’s mouth puckered with distaste. He sipped his beer. “Well, for one thing, he didn’t have a job. Cristina didn’t know how he made his money, but apparently he had clients of some sort.”
“Clients?”
“Yeah, but don’t ask me what he did for them. My guess is he was actually living off an inheritance. His dad was some big professor at Williams who died several years ago.”
Maya wasn’t surprised to hear that his father had passed away—though it reminded her that she’d never learned what was wrong with him.
“Not to mention,” Steven added, “that Frank basically hangs out at a bar every night. The Whistling Pig. Cristina would go with him sometimes. I never knew her to hang out at bars before Frank.”
Maya filed this away for later. She looked down into her drink, where a shiny olive sat pickling in her last sip of martini. “Did she ever mention anything . . . strange that happened at the cabin?”
Steven looked annoyed. “Not that I can think of. Why?”
“Another round?” said the waitress.
“Yes, please,” Maya said, at the same time that Steven said, “No, thanks.” He wasn’t even halfway through his beer. She saw him watching her through the bottom of her martini glass as she tossed back the last briny sip.
“I ask because Frank brought me there too,” she said. “Only once, but he did something to me there. I blacked out.”
“What?”
“As I was arriving and as I was leaving,” Maya said. She’d never seen the bridge or the outside of the cabin. “I had dirt on my hands and knees afterward, and I still don’t know why.”
“Jesus, that’s . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry to hear it.” He sounded like he meant it. “What do you think he did to you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The waitress returned with Maya’s martini, and she took a fortifying sip before continuing. “Frank was secretive about his cabin. I never knew why. He said I was the only person he’d ever brought there, and now he’s brought Cristina there too. And I can’t help but think that whatever he did to me . . . he probably did to her too.”
This clearly upset Steven. His whole hairless head flushed red.
Maya leaned in closer. “Whatever’s he’s hiding,” she said, “it’s there at his cabin. Which is why I need to go there—it’s the only way. But I’m scared. I don’t want to go alone.”
“You’re asking me to go with you.” He sounded both taken aback and not at all surprised that she’d ask this of him.
She nodded.
He was quiet for a long time. The bar had begun to fill, and someone had turned up the music. Finally, appearing to arrive at some conclusion, he pulled up Cristina’s painting of the cabin on his phone. “Look,” he said, “I don’t doubt that Frank hurt you. I had a bad feeling about him from the start. But I just don’t think Cristina would have painted this if he . . . did something to her. Like you said, she seemed to really like it there.”
Maya’s eyes filled with tears, but she managed to keep them from falling.
“I know she did,” Steven said, his tone growing soft, “because she gave me something else before she died. She gave me a few things, actually—like I told you, she said she was getting rid of some stuff. She’d remembered that my old coffee maker was broken, so she gave me hers.” Now he was the one verging on tears.
Maya bowed her head. “She sounds kind.”
“I didn’t make coffee in it until the next morning,” he said. “And when I did, when I went to fill it with water, I found a note she’d left me inside the little tank.” His mouth trembled. “I’m not going to tell you everything the letter said. But I will say that she apologized for the way she’d been acting. She thanked me for being her friend. And she said she was going to live with Frank in his cabin.”
Maya’s blood froze.
“Might not make sense to you or me, but she loved the guy.” Steven sounded resentful. He took a small sip of his beer, then set the rest at the edge of the table as if he was done.
Maya reached for her own drink but found it empty.
“I came here,” Steven said, “because you said you wanted to talk about Cristina’s painting. Her art. But I don’t think it’s good for me to speculate about what might have gone on between her and Frank. Nothing I can do about it anyway.”
“I understand,” Maya said as she reached for her purse. “I’m sorry.” She dropped her wallet on the floor.
“Are you all right?” He sounded tired, as if he’d only asked because he felt obligated.
“Fine.”
“Did you drive here?”
She shook her head. The waitress returned with the bill. “I got this,” Maya said.
“Sure you don’t want a ride?”
“No, thanks. I could use the walk.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“It’s not far,” she assured him.
“If you go to Frank’s cabin, I mean. I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but if I were you, I’d stay away from that place.”