Remy gasps and bends over. “What the—”
“You had this, the whole time, and you didn’t tell me?”
“She told me not to look!” he says, his voice full of the pain I’d caused. “I didn’t know what it was, and I still don’t.”
“Well, you should have,” I snap, so shocked by what I saw that I barely know what I’m saying.
He straightens up slowly. “Geez, you punch hard for such a skinny girl.”
My stunned mind jumps to another track. “This is where she was, right? She was coming home from here when that guy jumped her.”
He nods slowly. “She liked to stay late. I warned her to be careful, but to be honest this is a pretty safe neighborhood.”
“Yeah, it all turned out great,” I say, unable to keep my rage and pain out of my words.
He flinches back as if I’d swung at him again. “Don’t you think I’ve regretted that a million times? If I hadn’t let her use my space she’d still be alive. I know it, and I hate it. We used to hang out together all the time and paint, but she wanted to do this one alone so I didn’t come with her while she was working on it. I wish…”
I tune him out and study the back painting again. Though parts of it are just sketched, the whole is far too clear.
This time, she divided the canvas into two halves. The left part shows Anthony walking into the dining room, looking down at the beige carpet on which a single deflated red balloon lies.
I’m shown too, leaving through the other dining room door on my way upstairs to dress for lunch with my boyfriend, and so is the half-empty packet of balloons I’d thought I’d put safely atop the fireplace mantel.
It’s flat so it barely shows in the painting, but it’s definitely there on the mantel, exactly where I meant to put it.
But Gloria, our cordless phone pressed to her ear, is following me out of the room.
While a balloon falls from her jeans’ back pocket to join the one on the carpet.
I can hardly make myself look at the right side of the painting again, can’t believe I’ll really see the horrible thing I fear I saw.
But I do look, and I do see it.
Anthony lies on the floor, sketched but not yet painted, his hands beginning to move up to his throat.
The fireplace mantel is empty.
The packet of balloons is on the floor beside Anthony.
Gloria stands over it, her hand open as if she’s reaching out to her choking brother.
Or… as if she’s just dropped something.
I shut my eyes, my empty stomach churning. I can’t believe it, but the evidence is right here, in pencil and paint.
She made it look like I made the mistake. Like I killed Anthony.
She dropped the packet beside him, and then she screamed for help and ran away, falling into the glass curio cabinet and getting the scar she carried all her life.
But she carried more than that.
No wonder she fled the family after his funeral. Hiding her own guilt must have been a split-second decision. Maybe she figured he’d be fine and she just wanted to avoid getting in trouble for being careless. But then he died, and everyone thought I caused it, and how could she tell the truth then? She must have spent the rest of her life hating herself both for causing his death and for pinning it on me.
Her tears when I apologized for Anthony’s death as she lay in her hospital bed take on new and horrible meaning. She wasn’t refusing to forgive me. She was refusing to forgive herself.
If I’d known…
I can’t finish the thought.
What would have been different, if I’d known? If Gloria had told me in the hospital that her teenage self had framed mine, would even the tiniest thing have changed?
No. It would have made no difference.
Or it would have made all the difference in the world.
There’s no way to know.
I know only one thing.
I have no control.
I never have.
Unable to stay near the painting another second, I push past Remy and race for the door.