Lane and Ava entered a period, about halfway through the summer, in which they got used to each other and settled in to a more or less comfortable routine. Lane rose late, usually after eleven, and went straight to work. She preferred to shift from sleep directly into isolated creativity, with as few distractions as possible. Ava learned how she liked her coffee, and set it down in front of her without a word.
Later, in the afternoons, Lane emerged from her studio. Sometimes she appeared to be carrying on a conversation she’d been having in her head, figuring out a problem of composition or a clever way to incorporate the windows. Sometimes she spoke of memories, people she used to know. Ava tried to piece together the context, but usually she had no idea what Lane was talking about. She smoked marijuana all day long. Ava worried that it made Lane forgetful. She had heard this in school, in a special seminar they held for eighth graders in the auditorium. A police officer came and showed them a PowerPoint with illustrations of different drugs and their dangers. But Ava wasn’t sure which parts were true and which parts might be exaggerated to scare them.
Ava was reading in her room one day when she heard Lane’s voice.
“Louise,” Lane called.
Ava waited, listening. After a minute, Lane came in.
“Louise, come when I call you,” she said.
“I’m not Louise,” Ava said.
Lane’s face reddened. “Don’t talk back,” she said. “If your father were around—”
“What?” Ava said. “You never even met him. Did you?”
Lane appeared to lose her train of thought, and when she spoke next it was with a shrill anxiety in her voice.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
By now Ava was used to her grandmother’s moments of confusion.
“I’m Ava,” Ava said. “Louise’s daughter. I’m staying here.”
“Someone’s been in the house,” Lane said. “My candlesticks are missing.”
Ava had figured out already that this kind of talk was unfounded—according to Oliver, there had never been any break-ins in the house or even in the neighborhood. That’s just old people paranoia, he had said. Still, it was best to humor her.
“What candlesticks?” Ava said.
“They were Great Aunt Jennette’s,” Lane said. “The silver ones from the mantel.”
“I’m sure they’re here,” Ava said. “What do they look like?”
Lane reached across the dining table for her sketchbook and opened it to a clean page. She began to draw, quickly. Ava watched the image appear, startling in its realism: a bulky candlestick, encrusted with sculptural clusters of grapes and leafy vines. Lane added fanciful details and shading, and a few graceful lines indicating the mantel and the old wooden clock that sat at its center. Ava recognized the clock, but she’d never seen the candleholder before.
Seeing Lane draw was a profound pleasure. Ava loved her grandmother at these moments. She watched as Lane sketched, unnecessarily, the second candlestick, identical to the first. The two matching objects were rendered so exquisitely they enacted a kind of gravitational pull on the page.
“They came from Aunt Jennette’s, on Carondelet. Mama had them since she was sixteen. Where the hell are they?”
Ava was startled by the vehemence of this question. Lane had seemed utterly absorbed by the drawing, and Ava thought she might leave off with her worrying, but she did not. Ava could never tell when Lane’s mind had touched upon something in the present or the remote past, or something imagined, and she gave up trying to guess.
“They’re valuable,” Lane said. “Quite old.”
“Well, let’s look for them,” Ava said.
They began in the hall closet, pulling out ancient boxes loaded with odds and ends.
“Hey, check this out,” Ava said, upon finding a music box tucked behind books on a shelf.
Lane opened it and they watched a Bakelite ballerina perform a slow spin as a metallic waltz played.
“This was Uncle Arthur’s. It must have belonged to his sister who died.”
“Who’s Uncle Arthur?” Ava asked.
“He was Papa’s great-uncle,” Lane said. “He lived here for a bit after his wife died. Grandmama took care of him in his old age. Those paintings in the hall were his, too.”
“Which ones?”
They went to the hall to examine the paintings, a group of four framed watercolors of street scenes, horses and buggies, ladies with parasols.
“He did these?” Ava said. They were much different in style from Lane’s, more impressionistic.
“No, no. He bought them. We never had another artist in the family.”
“You’re the only one?”
“Far as I know. Your mother was never interested in anything creative,” Lane said.
“She could draw,” Ava said. “But not like you. She cooked, and baked. She made amazing cakes.”
“She was a good mom, wasn’t she?” Lane said.
Ava nodded, familiar tears clogging her throat. Lane put her arm around Ava’s shoulders and drew her into a half-hug. They stood silently before the paintings. Lane rarely touched her or expressed any affection. Ava held as still as possible, not wanting it to end.
“That doesn’t run in the family, either, being a good mother,” Lane said. “You were lucky.”
Ava hadn’t thought about it that way before. She wasn’t sure she felt lucky.
“What shall we have for dinner?” Lane said.
Together they leafed through the drawer of takeout menus. Ava called in their order while Lane smoked a bowl, the candlesticks forgotten. After dinner Ava took the music box to her room and listened to the waltz. This house, Ava thought. The past was all around them, disheveled layers of generations. No wonder she gets mixed up.