The Blue Bath (29 page)

Kat cringed and drew back further.

“He told Daniel to paint her younger. Like he did before.” Martin shook his head slowly. “But, he couldn’t see you like that anymore. He could only see that.” He nodded at the canvas before looking back at her, his eyes accusing. “The one thing that everyone wanted was the one thing that he couldn’t give them anymore.”

She turned back to the painting. How different it looked on its side in a hotel room, half swaddled in plastic. How different it looked now that she knew what it cost. She wondered how it would look to others. If perhaps without the memory of it, without knowing all that had been lost, it might have seemed different. She wondered if perhaps some might even have thought her pretty, although it was difficult for her to really believe that. What was she good for anymore? Her face, her body. Halfway gone, halfway to the end.

“It took longer than I expected it would.” His voice startled her. She looked up. He had leaned back in his chair, hands folded in his lap. He spoke slowly, deliberately. “It wasn’t a large cut. Must have just nicked the artery. I don’t think he felt much pain.”

In the silence of the room, she felt a vague, familiar nausea. Taking another step backward, she sank back onto a chair, the letter opener still clutched in her fist. Lowering her head into her hands, she allowed herself to succumb to the sensation, letting it wash over her.

“Oh, not to worry.” Hearing Martin’s voice, she lifted her head. He waved his empty fork at the painting absently. “I’ve no interest in causing you any trouble. I see no reason anyone ever has to see this one. It is, after all, incomplete. And damaged. And it doesn’t appear that there is much interest in seeing the redhead in middle age anyway. So long as you weren’t indiscreet with the police, that is.…” He paused, his soft face softening further. “You see. This way is better for everyone. This way we keep her as she was. Young. Beautiful. You see what I have done? I told you I would take care of it.”

As he spoke, Martin lifted the silver cover off the room-service tray. The scent of moist eggs and sausage wafted toward her. She gagged immediately. She managed to locate the rubbish bin next to the desk, vomiting up what little was in her stomach. When she lifted her head, she saw that Martin was grinning broadly at her, chewing a mouthful of egg. She met his eyes, and the corner of his mouth jerked upward in an ugly smirk. His lids lowered as his gaze flickered halfway down her body and back up again.

“Why, whatever is the matter, Katherine? Feeling poorly? Is it possible there may be other evidence that has survived the fire?” He shook his head. “I imagine it will not be easy explaining a blue-eyed baby to your husband.”

She was sweating. She could taste the bile in her mouth.

Martin took another forkful of egg, swallowing it quickly. “Or perhaps I was right about you. We are the same. We both understand what must be sacrificed.”

She straightened and crossed the room, brushing past the desk on her way. Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard his voice behind her.

“You’re welcome, Katherine.”

The sun was surprisingly strong as Kat left the hotel, but she did not pause under the wide canopy to allow her eyes to adjust to the brightness. Instead, she rushed ahead, purblind, keeping her eyes on the ground before her. Descending into the pedestrian tunnel under Park Lane, she found it even brighter there, the unforgiving glare of the fluorescents reflecting off the glossy white tile walls. She dragged herself through the narrow passage. She was suddenly so very tired. Her limbs struggled to bear the weight of her body. The tunnel seemed to stretch out before her, so that she began to doubt she would ever reach the other end.

Finally emerging into the daylight, she followed the path into the park, her eyes on the sandy gravel as it rushed along before her, its imperfections blurring as her pace quickened. When she felt the path begin to veer northward, she left it and set out over the wet grass, intermittently flecked with white and purple crocus. She could smell the black earth underneath her, dense with rain, heavy with life. The cold air revived her and she breathed it in deeply, concentrating on the tightening in her chest with each breath.

She didn’t wonder if Martin was telling the truth. She knew that he was. Daniel had been alive when she left. What if she had stayed with him? Or what if she had stayed away—never gone to see his show? What if he had not shown Martin the paintings? She thought of all the ways that he could still be alive. And then she thought that she might be sick again.

Kat remembered the look that had passed between Daniel and Martin in the studio that morning. Something had been exchanged. She remembered the expression on Daniel’s face as he told her to go. Had he known what awaited him in the studio after he sent her away? Had he traded his life for hers?

The cut on his hand had been an accident, but Martin was right. Who would believe her? And even if they did believe her, wasn’t she complicit? As long as she remained quiet no one would know. No one would see the portrait. If she went to the police everyone would know. It would be in all the papers. Jonathan would know. In time, Will would know. A single thought appeared in her mind with such incendiary clarity that she bent over and retched. She was glad that her mother was dead. She was glad that she was not here to see this.

Leaning over the wet ground, the taste of bile on her tongue, she knew that was not all that Martin was right about. How had she not seen the signs? The nausea, the fatigue. She had attributed them to anxiety, to grief. The idea of a pregnancy had never occurred to her. It had taken so long with Will. Although it was possible that it was Jonathan’s, she knew it was unlikely. A blue-eyed baby would reveal all her sins, as surely as the portrait would have done.

She thought about the choice she made in Paris. She wondered if she could do it again. No one was looking. No one would see. Not Jonathan. Not Jorie. Not Daniel. Not her mother. No one would know. It would be so easy.

Kat stumbled as her foot scraped heavily against the rough pebbled surface suddenly beneath it. She looked up to find herself beside the Serpentine. The still air pressed down on the long water, the empty sky reflected on its flat surface. It was cold and the park was almost empty. Squinting across the lake, she watched a pair of mute swans shadow a group of tourists in front of the Lido, hoping to be fed. It was a familiar view. When Will was a baby, she had spent hours walking him around this lake.

Kat thought about her mother. She thought about the end. How she had been reduced to her basic elements. Exaggerated, so that she was all kindness, all softness. Exhausted and devoid of artifice. Her skin hanging loose on her bones, as if she were disappearing inside herself. Feeling Kat squeeze her hand, she had spoken without opening her eyes.

“Who is that?” Her voice childlike.

“It’s me.” And because she did not know how else to say it, and because her mother’s eyes remained closed and Kat wanted to be sure she knew it was her, Kat added words that she had never had to say before. “Your daughter.”

Her eyes opened and a light flickered behind their clouds. “My daughter.” Her features had moved briefly into the memory of a smile. “But now you are a mother. Be good now.”

Her hand moving with vestigial grace, even more arresting in its slowness, she reached out and touched Kat’s arm. Alighting there—dry and smooth. Her eyes closed and she was asleep again.

Kat thought about Daniel’s final portrait and the desolate suspense of its still-unpainted possibilities, awaiting the final touches of brush to canvas. Touches that would never come. And suddenly she knew the shape of it. Of what was missing. Sinking down on a bench, she felt the weight of it inside of her. This nascent being. As real as Will. As true as love. All possibility, like the blank canvases in the studio. She would keep the baby. She would complete the picture. There could be no redemption, but perhaps there could be a requiem.

Looking up, she saw that the sky was not as empty as its reflection. She watched the small planes drawing slow white lines of vapor across the blue. She thought about Daniel’s legacy and how he had come back and found another ending, and she marveled at the power of a remembered face. And she thought that maybe it was a girl. That maybe she would have her eyes. And she marveled at the power of an imagined face.

*   *   *

S
HE TOLD HIM
quick, allowing herself little time to reconsider. She called him and asked him to meet her in the park. Her request so urgent and so devoid of detail that he was there within minutes. She recognized the way he moved even from a distance, his tall slim figure striding toward her purposefully, becoming larger the closer he came to her.

She told him quick, and then closed her eyes. She did not want to see it this time. Did not want to see the split second when he did the math, when he considered the possibilities. He would, of course, do the math. Jonathan always did the math. But she also knew that he wanted to believe. It was his nature.

Kat knew that it might not last and that there might be other moments, as time went on, when she would have to close her eyes again. But she was no stranger to the dark. She knew that it was already a lie. But she thought that it might still be beautiful. Not for her. Not now that she knew what it cost. But for Will. And for the baby.

*   *   *

T
HE PEOPLE IN
the park that afternoon might have seen the couple on the footpath. They would likely have noticed her red hair, the way it swam around her face in the late-winter wind, adhering to a slight dampness on her cheeks. If they watched for a few minutes, they would have seen her tell him something. Something that arrested him. They would have been too far away to see her close her eyes and look away even before she finished speaking. Too far away to see his mouth fall open and his eyes narrow as he took a half step back from her, hesitating for only the briefest of instants. A heartbeat.

But they would have seen him embrace her and then break away and laugh happily, his face animated in joy. If they watched closely, they might have detected the proprietary way that he held her afterward, and the air of attentive concern that permeated his movements, mirroring hers, as they moved along the path, his arm encircling her waist.

They might have said that there was a certain look about her. A certain sadness in the way that she carried herself. How she did not lean into him fully as they moved along the path. They might even have thought that they knew something about her. About them. And maybe they did. But what they were really seeing was just a fragment. A small part of a larger, unseen, unseeable whole. There was more to the picture, of course. There always is.

Maybe they were paying more attention than they would have usually. It was, after all, a singular day. Spring was starting to show through the ragged edges of winter. The sun was higher now, its warmth reaching to the ground. The daffodils were just beginning to split their spathes. Their small sulfur points swarmed at the edges of the path, illuminating the way forward.

It must have been a beautiful picture.

about the author

Mary Waters-Sayer
has a B.A. in English from Binghamton University and later studied writing at Stanford University’s Continuing Education program. She worked in investor and public relations for ten years. A native of New York, she has also lived in California and spent twelve years as an expatriate in London. She lives outside of Boston with her family. You can sign up for email updates
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