Adrift in the Sound (29 page)

“We do need to,” he said sharply. Lizette blinked at the shift. “You need to know.”

“Can’t we just find the crib and get it downstairs? Violet might wake up. She can turn over now. She’s getting really big.”

“Listen.” He swallowed, took a deep breath. “I got a letter, maybe three or four months ago. From an art dealer in New York. He’d heard your mother died.”

“But that happened six or seven years ago,” Lizette said. “What took him so long? I mean, New York’s far away, but not that far, even if he got the news by Pony Express.”

“He offered condolences, of course,” Einar continued. “But, he wanted to ask about the signature on your mother’s paintings.” He focused on her face, connected with her eyes.

“Signature?” Lizette blinked, looked confused. “What about the signature?”

“Well, she always signed her work L. Karlson.”

“Dad, I know that,” she said impatiently. “We have the same initials. So what?”

“He had a couple of new paintings at his gallery.”

“Jesus, Dad, get to the point.” She flashed back to the guy at the gallery downtown, remembered his talk about New York and museums and collectors. She felt trapped and the heat was making her sweat. “Violet will wake up any minute. We have to go downstairs.”

“The paintings he was selling were signed Lizette Karlson,” he said.

“Lizette?”

“Yes, but the ones that sold ten years ago and the new ones appeared to be by the same artist. He called the new ones more evolved, that’s what he said in the letter. In both cases, the artists last name is Karlson from Seattle.” He clamped his mouth shut and settled back in the chair. “The buyer of your mother’s paintings, a collector, had asked for authentication before buying any of the new ones. These people. They’re investors. They spend a lot of money. They want answers.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I don’t know what to tell them. I didn’t answer. You were in the hospital, again. I just couldn’t… couldn’t bring myself to explain. I can’t.”

“Can’t what, Dad?” He twisted sideways in the chair.

“You know what happened.” He started again, turned to her, eyes watery. “What happened when your mother died.”

“Do we need to go through that now? I know what she did. Everyone was shocked. I ended up in the hospital, lost it. We all did for a while. We still haven’t gotten over it. Why bring it up now? We just came up here to get some stuff for the baby.”

“Even without the body, I knew it was her,” he said, very quietly. “The water badly damaged the canvas, but I knew it was her. I saw what she did.”

“Did what? You’re freaking me out. What’re you trying to say?”

“Remember the painting you did that won the grand prize at the state fair?”

Lizette glanced at the big box of her old canvases tucked under the eaves. She got up, started to go to the box to look for the painting.

“Wait.” Einar ordered. “Sit down. Listen.” Surprised by his adamant tone, Lizette dropped back into the rocking chair. “The painting they found under the bridge. The one the bus driver saw her tuck under her coat before she went over?” Lizette stared, more interested. “It was your painting from the fair.”

“No!” The heat in the attic turned stifling, the dusty air filled her lungs. She choked, coughed into her fist, scraped her scalp, looked at the ruins around her.

“I recognized the colors and some of the underlying pen strokes that guided the piece even with all the water damage. In the lower, right hand corner of the canvass, it said L. Karlson, it was faint, but I knew the signature had been altered.” Then, in a rush, he said. “I think she’d been forging her name to your work for years, at the same time undermining you, pushing you to work harder, always finding fault, interfering, picking apart whatever you did, trivializing your efforts, making you crazy.” He stood up, sat down, looked like soft wax melting into the wobbly chair.

“My God, Lizette,” he blurted. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much! I’m sick about this, that I didn’t protect you, didn’t see how twisted and desperate she’d become. I don’t know how long the deception had been going on, maybe not that long. I don’t know, can’t imagine.” He coughed deep phlegm from his throat, tears rolled down his cheeks. She knelt beside him, put her arm around his shoulders, laid her cheek on his, rocked him like a baby as he sobbed.

“Dad, please don’t cry,” she begged. “We can figure this out. I think I know how my paintings got to New York this time, how they showed up in galleries in Pioneer Square.”

“How?”

“It’s a long story,” She patted him and wiped his face with her fingertips, looked into his watery blue eyes. “I’ve been busy with the baby, but I’ll straighten it out once we get settled. Don’t worry, really.”

She began lifting sheets, sneezed from the dust. Deflated, her father sat watching.

“Lizette?” She turned to him. “Please understand. I think she just couldn’t live with herself, with the lie. I mean, with what she’d done. She so much wanted to be a success.”

“Really, Dad. That’s enough. Stop. Don’t say anymore. Please.” She looked around at the draped jumble. “Help me find the crib.”

Violet’s wailing rolled up the attic stairs, gaining strength.

She bolted from the attic and down the stairs. She scooped the baby up, walked in the living room, holding Violet against her chest. When her father came down, she avoided him by taking the baby to her old bedroom, unchanged since she was a teenager, the edges of her Beatles posters faded and curling. She took a pill from the bottle in her bag, lay down on her old bed with Violet and played with her, waited for the drug’s calming effect. Later she took a bath with her, poofing bubbles on her head, wiping them away with a washcloth. After they played some more on the floor, Violet drank a bottle and fell into a sweet sleep.

In the morning, Lizette found her old nursery furniture in the front hall, the crib parts leaning against the wall by the front door, the dresser, changing table and little wooden footstool beside it. The rocking chair blocked the door to her father’s study. She had a deep memory of the antique white furniture with pink, blue and red flowers painted on the headboard and drawer fronts, vines encircling the legs, scrolls and curlicues. She saw her mother’s hands, sure and graceful, stenciling and freehanding the ancient rosemaling design, Swedish froth and lace, hearts and flourishes. The shapes and colors were familiar. She’d done the same thing on the furniture at Sandy’s, but nothing like the beauty of her mother’s shaded work. It astonished her and she had a twinge of guilt about taking it to the ranch, setting it up in the cabin, realized that not only was it too beautiful for such a place, it also was way too big to fit into the small cabin and still allow enough room for her to work.

She went to the kitchen and put water on for tea. Waiting for the water to boil, she tried to envision the furniture in Marian’s house, in Mr. Cutler’s old bedroom, but the idea felt wrong. She poured the steaming water into a mug and decided to thank her father for offering the crib, but it wouldn’t work. A wave of sadness washed over her as she sat in the memory-filled kitchen, the cuckoo clock’s ticking, her mother fluttering around the stove, the canaries singing in their gilded cages, lingonberry jam sitting on the table, waiting for the toaster to pop up. Gathering her homework, taking her sack lunch, always with celery sticks that she threw away before she got to school.

She got up with her mug and pushed out the back door, went to her mother’s studio, tiptoed in, set her mug on the cluttered workbench under the window, pulled up a tall stool. Northeasterly light pressed against the dusty panes. She mentally searched herself, but found only stiff regret, frozen anger, hardened compassion, indifference. She heard Violet’s complaining cry and looked up to see her father coming across the lawn with a wiggling bundle in his arms.

“It won’t do any good to brood,” he said, handing her the baby, looking around. “I heard her crying in your bedroom and looked in to see what you were doing, but you were gone. I thought I’d find you here.”

She looked around the studio and saw that time and moisture were dissolving her mother’s workspace, that her sketches and paintings were breaking down like duff in the rain forest, moldering into the earth. “We’ve got to pack this stuff up,” she said to her father. “You’ve waited too long, everything is ruined.”

“I couldn’t bring myself … didn’t want to see.”

“Or feel,” Lizette said bitterly.

“I don’t know what to tell the people in New York. About the artist, whether she’s dead or alive. It makes a difference in the value of the paintings, you know? What do you want me to say?”

“Dad,” she looked at him carefully, saw his innocence, paused and tempered her words. “Listen,” she said gently. “I understand what happened with Mom, not completely, but generally. I’m still sorting through things in my mind. I thought about it all night and I understand about the paintings. I know there’ll need to be some answers. I have an agent here in Seattle who can help with that.” She flashed on Toulouse and swallowed hard, started again. “But I want to get back home and get Violet settled so I can straighten things out, continue to work on my canvases. I can’t stop living.”

“How will you get home?” Worry etched his face. He pulled Violet from her arms, put the baby’s head on his shoulder and rubbed her back, swayed. “Will Violet’s father take you to Orcas?”

“We can take the bus and the ferry,” she said. “That’s how we got here.”

“But, the crib and dresser, the rocking chair?”

She really wanted the rocking chair, already sensed Violet’s comforting weight in her arms, rocking together in the night by the cabin windows, waiting for dawn, for the orcas to come hunting, the stove crackling beside them with sweet red cedar logs. But, she couldn’t take the rest of it. She watched a fat black bumblebee drink from the flowering vine that dangled from the studio’s eave, bumping from bloom to fading bloom, unconcerned about stealthy winter creeping in on the breeze.

“You can take us to Rocket’s,” she finally said. “He’s only over in the Eastlake District. If he isn’t there, maybe Fisher can borrow one of his father’s trucks or one of the other guys will take us. I have to get back to Orcas, for the potlatch. Poland and Abaya have worked on it for a couple of years. I promised to help.” As an afterthought, she said, “Why don’t you come?”

“That’d be nice. I haven’t … “ She felt a gush of regret for even asking, for the disappointment in Rocket, for the emptiness in her heart, for the lies, for the frozen loneliness and picked up a rusty knife, ran her finger over the still sharp edge, tuned her father out and imagined feeling—welcomed the wince from a deep, clean slice. She laid her forearm out on the workbench, looked at the smooth, white skin, pictured hot red blood running around her wrist and through her fingers and an image of the man, stabbed and leaning against the tavern window, welled up. She felt overwhelmed by the memory of the rich, throat-clutching color on his hands, the shock, the black overcoat engulfing her. Violet belched, loud and long, giggled.

“You little dog,” Einar said, nuzzling her.

Lizette flinched and grabbed the baby from her father’s arms and ran, flapping her big feet across the dewy lawn, hitting the back stairs, bursting into the cold kitchen, looking for a baby bottle. The phone’s ringing sent her to the receiver. “Hello? Oh, Marian. Thank God it’s you!” She shuffled Violet from one hip to the other.

“Everything’s messed up. I’m getting out of here … I don’t know. I feel like killing myself … I don’t know why. My father …” She saw Einar standing by the refrigerator, shifting from foot to foot.

“Who is it?” he said softly.

She put her hand over the mouth piece. “Marian,” turning her back on him. He lifted Violet from her. “What do you mean? Did it burn down completely? Sandy’s place too! I can’t believe it! Has anybody talked to Rocket?”

She slumped to the floor, leaned against the side of the cabinet, the curly phone cord wrapped around her neck. “Yeah. I’m still here. It’s just, well. It’s a shock. He said he was working this weekend. I don’t know where he is. I can’t think right now.”

She slid further down, stretched her legs akimbo across the threshold to the dining room, wiped her wet cheeks, made quick chirps, listened. “Bomber? No. Jesus, please no! He was harmless. How do they know it’s him? … True, he slept under the basement stairs and he always wore that filthy Army jacket.”

“What’s going on?” Einar loomed over her slouched body, reached for the receiver. Lizette pulled away, flapped her arm at him, rolled onto her hip to get away.

“Dad!” She glared at him from her rumpled position on the floor. “Nothing. Sorry. He just wants to know what’s going on.”

She listened into the receiver. “But, how do they know it’s Bomber? That’s where they found him? … I feel really bad about that. But what about the piano? Oh! Thank God! At least they got it out. Who called you? But was Fisher there when the fire started? … Well, at least the piano’s safe. Rocket’s gonna totally freak!”

Lizette got up and twisted around the wall to stand in the dining room, out of her father’s view, the phone cord straining at its connection. “What’d the cops say? I was going over there this morning. No, I don’t have to. My father offered us a ride to Orcas. Don’t worry. I won’t go. What did the cops want? No, I promise. I won’t go. Yeah, I love you, too. Probably in three or four hours, depends on the ferry schedule. We still have to pack the car and feed Violet. It gets crowded on weekends. Sometimes you have to wait for the next ferry. I’ll be careful. Promise. Stop worrying. Yeah, bye.”