The remains Read online

  Pulling a handful of paper towels from the wall-mounted dispenser, I thought about heading back to the classroom when the wood door flung open.

  Robyn.

  She stood tall, narrow-hipped, cotton t-shirt barely concealing a belly button pierced with a silver hoop. She stuck both hands into the pockets of her low-waist Gap jeans.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Franny thinks you don’t like his painting. And might I remind you that Franny’s mother has provided us with one huge annual contribution to pretty much be professional art cheerleaders for her gifted artist-in-residence.”

  I inhaled again, nodded.

  Robyn was right. What was going on with me? You just don’t walk out on a talent like that; on a sweet human being like that.

  “This isn’t one of those words-in-the-painting things is it, Bec? Because if it is, I’m calling Albany Psychiatric.”

  “Phone book’s in the bottom desk drawer in the front office,” I said, trying my best to work up a smile through all the lightheadedness, the dizziness. “Unless of course you want to just cut to the chase and call 9-1-1.”

  How can she not make out the word ‘See’ in the tall grass? How is it that I see it and she can’t unless I spell it out for her?

  Robyn pursed her lips, ran an open hand through thick hair.

  “You wanna tell me what you see this time? You wanna talk about it?” Her voice became calmer, more sympathetic.

  Should I be honest with her? Reveal precisely what I saw inside Franny’s canvas? The field and the dark woods behind my parents’ house, the painting depicting them precisely the way I see them in my dreams? The way I remember them from that long ago October afternoon? Should I tell her that in the dark and light shadowing of the tall grass blowing in the wind I recognized the letters S-e-e? Should I tell her that Franny’s paintings were somehow speaking to me?

  Robyn was my friend and partner. Still, intuition told me to shut up about this one. That yesterday’s ‘Listen’ episode had been enough weirdness for one week.

  I shook my head. “It’s nothing. I’m just feeling nauseous is all. It’ll pass.”

  Reaching out with her dominant hand, Robyn pressed her cold palm against my forehead.

  “Cold and clammy,” she commented, then spoke in the third person. “Is it alive or is it Memorex?”

  I had to wonder.

  “Maybe you should go home, go back to bed. I can handle things here. It’s just Franny and those two rich old ladies who can’t paint worth a crap. ‘Sides, we’re not running any classes this afternoon or tonight.” She quickly lowered her head, made like she was looking under the stall to make certain one of those same rich old ladies didn’t occupy it.

  “It’ll pass, whatever it is,” I repeated while trying to get around her to the door. The former Catholic school girl’s room had suddenly become too small for the both of us.

  “Wait a minute,” she barked. “You’re not getting off that easy, Miss Underhill.”

  I about-faced, my hand still clutching the door opener. Somehow I sensed what was coming. I could tell by the pensive look on her face.

  “You’re not…” Instead of finishing the question, she held an open hand out in front of her stomach as if to indicate a growing belly.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “You have to engage in consensual sexual activity for that to happen.”

  “Uh huh,” Robyn murmured with one of her sly smiles and a wink of her right eye.

  I could have slapped her. But at least she made me smile again.

  She cocked her head in the direction of the door.

  “Let’s get out of here before the old ladies think we’re getting it on.” she giggled.

  Together we exited the bathroom.

  “Don’t you want to know?” Robyn said while we were walking the corridor.

  “Don’t I want to know what?”

  We were standing outside the studio door.

  “How my date went last night?”

  I’d completely forgotten.

  “How’d your date go last night, Rob?”

  She threw me another wink of that right eye. “I just hope I don’t start feeling nauseas.”

  Chapter 13

  The rest of my day passed in a haze of strange and for the most part, terrible art. Students came, students went. I encouraged them all, answered all questions, calmed their anxieties about failure and inadequacy.

  Franny stayed the entire day, busily touching up his latest painting. His ability to paint so fast, so magnificently was beyond my understanding. But it certainly had everything to do with those things an autistic savant possessed and what ‘normal people’ lacked.

  But all talent aside, I couldn’t help but sense that something else was going on here; something that lie far beneath the surface of the paint and the canvas. Franny might have been unable to communicate in the everyday sense of the word. But in my soul I felt that he was trying to communicate with me. The fact that the painting resembled the setting of a recurring dream of mine could not have been entirely coincidental. There had to be an explanation for it-an explanation that, at the moment anyway, seemed too elusive. If language and the emotional tools that went with it were closed off to him, then painting had become more than just an art or a vivid method of expression.

  It had become his language of choice.

  As Tuesday afternoon went from afternoon to dusk, Franny still occupied his stool in the far corner of the studio. I’d made the conscious decision to avoid him. Rather, avoid the new painting. Having assisted and critiqued her last student, Robyn had her jacket on, leather bag strapped around her shoulder. Standing near the exit, she raised her right hand high, pointed it at the exterior door. Sign language for ‘Mind if I split?’

  I didn’t mind. Robyn had a life beyond the art center. Still, I couldn’t stop my curiosity from getting the best of me.

  “Stockbroker.” I said like a question.

  She smiled.

  Once again the pit in my stomach made its bulky presence known. Was it envy that plagued my insides, or just a simple gastro-reaction to my lunchtime half-picked at rubbery grilled cheese?

  “Details,” I said, in place of a good night. “I want all the juicy details tomorrow.”

  Rob had her hand on the metal and wire-glass door.

  She said, “You want me to see if the stockbroker has a friend?”

  “He’ll just reject me in the end,” I joked. But I immediately regretted having opened my big fat mouth.

  “Sister Mary Rebecca,” Robyn said, as she opened the door. “That’s what I’m going to start calling you.”

  That’s when I did something completely unlike me. I stuck out my tongue and closed my eyes like a ten year old.

  She burst out in laughter.

  I quickly pulled it back in before Franny got wind of the gesture. Not that he’d have any clue what it meant.

  “Don’t make me scream,” Robyn said.

  “Now there’s a challenge,” I said, as she bolted through the exit.

  She was hardly out the now open door when Franny’s ride pulled up, those familiar round headlights spotlighting Robyn’s voluptuous frame as she tossed a wave at Franny’s mom.

  “Time to pack it in, Fran,” I announced, turning to him.

  But he’d already beat me to the punch. In the short time it took me to bid farewell to Rob, Franny managed to seal his paint canisters and jars of turpentine. He also packed up everything that needed packing. Except his new painting, that is.

  I swallowed something sour.

  “Fran, don’t forget your piece.”

  “Painted this for you,” he mumbled, big brown eyes peeled to the paint-stained VCT. What disturbed me more than his gifting me yet another painting was how his voice took on that same odd tone that had first revealed itself last night. The tone that revealed the man locked inside the perpetual boy. His face also took on the look of a man who knew something I did not. That voice, that
face; they were enough to fill my spine with ice water.

  A horn blared.

  I nearly jumped through the concrete block wall.

  The horn blared again.

  Franny’s mom was growing impatient. It occurred to me that I should follow him out to the Scaramuzzi pickup truck, pose a few questions to his mother. Were you aware that he’s given me two of his paintings? Did you know that I’m seeing words in the paintings that no one else seems to see? That is, if I don’t point them out first? Did you know that today’s painting very much resembles the setting of a recurring dream I’ve had? That it matches the place where my twin sister and I were attacked by a monster who lived in the woods thirty years ago almost to the day?

  I wanted to ask her these things and more. But Franny would overhear our conversation. Franny went for the door, the ratty, old, cuffed dungarees dragging along the floor.

  Out the corner of my eye, I spotted the new painting resting on the easel.

  “What do you call it?” I called out.

  He turned, slow, awkward, the open glass door pressed up against his stocky shoulder.

  “The title,” he mumbled. “The title. The title.”

  “See.” I swallowed.

  “Goodnight, Rebecca.”

  “Goodnight, Franny.”

  And then the artist was gone.

  Chapter 14

  The dark evening had become shrouded in a thick, foggy mist. Broadway was empty of motor vehicles, its sidewalks empty of people.

  I climbed the parking garage ramp to the second level where I’d parked the Cabriolet. The concrete garage was brightly lit with sodium lamplight. It was also damp, cold, lonely. I walked with my knapsack hanging off my right shoulder, Franny’s ‘See’ painting tucked under my left arm.

  My footsteps echoed inside the cavernous garage.

  I was all alone.

  I didn’t like being that alone; the vulnerability that went with it. My body was a live wire, my senses picking up every nuance of sound, movement and smell. It wasn’t as though I were being watched. It was more like being totally naked and exposed.

  The Cabriolet could not have been more than seventy or eighty feet away from me. But it might as well have been a mile. That car was my safety zone-four walls and a retractable roof.

  I walked, boot heels click-clacking along the concrete floor.

  Then I saw a shadow.

  Just up ahead of me, the shadow projected itself onto the concrete floor, as though coming from a man concealing himself behind a concrete column.

  I stopped.

  I opened my mouth to speak. But no words would come.

  The shadow moved.

  It moved backwards, forwards, the person behind the column shifting position.

  That’s when I found my voice.

  “Who is it?”

  It came out as a shout. So loud and adrenalin charged, I startled myself.

  “Who’s there?” I shouted again, voice echoing inside the concrete garage.

  I felt the blood leave my head, sink down my neck, pour down the insides of my body. I felt the blood spill out the bottoms of my feet. Fear blinded me like a black hood pulled over my head. I stumbled, my balance shifting from one side to the other. I’m not sure how long I stood there exposed, eyes closed, body swaying, breathing hard and fast.

  I closed my eyes.

  But when I opened them, the shadow was gone.

  I could only guess that whoever had been behind the column was gone now. That is, if there had been someone there in the first place.

  Had I imagined the shadow?

  Was my imagination running away with itself?

  God, get me out of here.

  I made a mad dash for the car, at the same time pulling the keys from my knapsack. I dropped Franny’s painting as I thumbed the unlock button on the key-face. The car came to life, door-locks unlocking, headlights flashing.

  Bending at the knees, I picked the painting back up, ran for the Cabriolet. I threw open the driver’s side door, tossed in the bag, tossed in the painting. Jumping in behind the wheel, I fumbled with the ignition key until I managed to slip it into the lock. Pumping the gas I turned the engine over until it started with a resounding roar. To the immediate right of me was the concrete column that had hid the figure of a person. A person who’d been watching me. A man. Or so I imagined.

  I pulled out of the spot, the tires squealing against the smooth concrete floor. I made for the area designated EXIT. For a quick moment I thought about looking into the rearview.

  But I resisted the urge.

  Better not to see what was behind me; what might have been stalking me.

  Chapter 15

  I didn’t enter my apartment so much as I burst through the back door.

  The sudden intrusion was enough to make Michael jump out of his chair.

  “You scared the crap out me, Bec!”

  I dropped the art bag to the floor, leaned today’s ‘See’ painting up against yesterday’s ‘Listen’ painting, then made a beeline for the kitchen. I made it back into the living room along with two open bottles of Corona, set one of them down besides Michael’s laptop.

  “Work’s over.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He grabbed hold of the bottle. “Nail officially bitten.”

  I took a long pull of the beer and felt the cool carbonation against the back of my throat, the magic of the alcohol calming me.

  Michael closed his laptop and sat back in his chair.

  “Explanation.”

  I put myself back beside the ‘See’ painting. “This happened.”

  Stealing another sip of beer, Michael got up from his desk. He approached the painting with squinty, focused eyes, the fingers on his right hand smoothing out his mustache. After a time, he nodded, cocked his head toward one shoulder, then the other as if to carefully choose his words.

  “This is what I see,” he said. “I see Franny’s version of a rural landscape.” He tossed me a glance. “But I’m guessing you’re seeing something inside the landscape that I’m not.”

  I took another drink and bit my bottom lip.

  “Yes,” I said. “And no.”

  “Which is it, Bec?”

  I gazed down at the painting, used extended index finger to point to a specific area of tall grass that appeared to be swaying in the wind.

  “There’s a word in there,” I said. “See… S-e-e.”

  He stood back as though to gain a different perspective. It was not unlike the way someone might look at their own image in a funhouse mirror. He dug into his pocket for his Chapstick. He uncapped it, ran it across his lips, capped it back up and returned it to his pocket.

  “Ah, don’t you think you’re stretching it a little?”

  He thought I was bonkers. No two ways about it.

  I started to cry.

  Setting the ‘See’ canvas back down against the ‘Listen’ canvas, I stormed into the kitchen, pulled a paper towel off the rack, dried my eyes, and blew my nose.

  I heard Michael doing something out in the living room. Was he looking at the ‘See’ painting? I could only guess that it had to be the case.

  After about a minute, he met me in the kitchen and placed his now empty beer bottle in the sink. He stood over me, looking me in the eye.

  “In the tall grass,” he said. “The rays of sunshine, burning patterns into the grass. You look close enough, you make out the word ‘See.’ It’s not completely obvious, but it’s there.”

  I felt a spark of hope. But then, maybe he was just playing along with me. Making me feel better.

  “No kidding,” he said. “You have a keen eye. That’s your job after all. I see it. More than I saw the word ‘Listen’ yesterday.”

  He leaned into me, wrapping his arms around me. First time in a long time.

  “You’re not nuts,” he said. “But…”

  It was one of those ominous dangling ‘Buts.’

  “But what?”

  He released m
e and looked into my wet face.

  “We’re not married anymore, but I still love you. Because I love you and still want to be near you, I also know you’ve been holding out on me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, brown eyes peering down at the floor. “Truth is Bec, I’ve sensed for a long time that you’ve been holding out on me.”

  Drying my eyes again, I bit down on my bottom lip. Oh God Mol, what do I do now?

  I wanted her to talk to me, send me a sign, let me know it was okay if I revealed the secret to Michael. For a second or two I waited for my cell phone to chime. But that was stupid. There would be no text messages from heaven. The decision to tell Michael everything would have to come from me and me alone. It had been thirty years since the assault on Molly and me. Thirty years that I-we-had held onto a secret that by now had bored a hole in my heart. Now that secret was consuming me with paranoia, making me nuts.

  Molly was gone now.

  So were my mother and father.

  Who would it hurt if I spilled everything to someone I trusted?

  No one.

  Not a soul other than those who had already vanished from my life.

  My decision made, I looked up at my ex-husband and gave him a glare that might have melted those brown eyes if only they were made of ice.

  “You’d better plan on staying for dinner tonight.”

  Chapter 16

  A half-hour passed. Or had it been half the night? Only when I had nothing more to reveal did I realize that Michael hadn’t touched his beer. It occurred to me that I hadn’t touched mine either.

  Michael’s face wasn’t pale. It had turned bed-sheet white.

  We occupied the living room, him seated on the Providence College desk chair, me on the arm of the couch. Barely three feet separated us. He pressed open hands against his face, rubbed them up and down over stubble and white skin as though it better helped him absorb the truths about myself, Molly and a dead man named Joseph William Whalen. I knew then that he was trying to hide the fact that he was wiping away tears.