“Write what down?”
“The day you started painting again.”
She glares at me.
“You write this down,” Mother says. “‘My mother knows I’ve been lying and stealing.’”
I laugh. “Strong words, Mother. ‘Lie’ and ‘steal.’ What have I stolen? What have I lied about?”
“Lied, past tense? You’re still lying.” Her face tightens. “The blue paint.”
“When did you see it last?” I hold my pencil over the tiny boxes, touch the point to the inside of one, prepared to fill it in.
Mother doesn’t answer.
“You should check your studio,” I say. “You’ve probably just misplaced it.” In my mind I see the Prussian blue safe in her tackle box, ready for the next project. When she finds it, she’ll learn that another color is missing.
I can’t get the view of the sea from the widow’s walk out of my head. “Why did you let him go out alone?” I ask Mother. That day, Dad took a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne with him. No champagne flutes were found on the boat—just some shards—but two wineglasses were missing from the house. Martia reported them lost to the commissioner when he came to interview her. Otherwise, the missing items would have been charged to her, the cost deducted from her wages.
“What do you mean?” Mother asks, stepping back.
“Dad. You should have gone with him.”
“He liked fishing alone,” Mother said.
“With champagne?”
“You think I knew about the champagne ahead of time?”
I don’t answer her. I believe she did.
When she sees the expression on my face, she moves toward the door.
“You did know.” It’s not a question. Dad asked her to go out on the boat that day and she turned him down. That much I know. I overheard them by accident. What else did she say to him when she turned and left him standing there?
“I don’t have to be interrogated by you.”
“You knew Howard back in October. Before then, too, didn’t you? Did you tell Dad about Howard?”
Her face goes slack. She opens her mouth, maybe to tell me something, something honest. But she doesn’t speak. Her lips narrow, sealing her mouth closed.
“Did you tell the commissioner about Howard?” I ask.
Mother could tell me that Howard only came later, after Dad died, whether it’s true or not. She could say that they got together only after Dad died and because she was lonely. She could say that’s what she told the commissioner.
She doesn’t.
The French doors slam shut.
Chapter Fourteen
KAMMI FINDS me lying on the sand underneath the deck, where I’ve retreated. From here, I can hear the ocean but I’m away from the light, from the sea breeze. Looking up through the slats, I see shadows crisscross over me. Kammi’s standing in the sun, shading her eyes to look at me. Her head is covered by a straw hat, and I can see her zinc-oxide-tinted nose. She clutches a drawing pad to her chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
I roll onto my side to face her. “Tell you what?”
“About your dad.”
“What about him?”
Kammi squeezes the drawing paper closer, like a shield. “My dad told me he died. But you should have told me about the boat—” She stops herself. “You should have told me the way he died. I made such a big deal about the boat. You could have warned me. I kept trying to get you to show me the boat.”
I say nothing.
Her voice wobbles. “I said something about the boat to your mother.”
I sit up. “You did? What’d she do?”
“She twisted around and knocked over her easel. Her painting ended up in the sand. I picked it up. I tried to brush the sand off. But everything smudged. It was supposed to be a harbor scene, with all the boats in the distance. It’s ruined.” Her voice rises at the end.
“Did you tell Mother it was ruined?” I try to imagine the scene, what happened, the melding of paints and sand.
Kammi’s voice catches. “You should have told me. You knew I wanted to paint that boat.” Tears glide down her face. “You did it on purpose. To make me look bad.”
I stare at her. Her pretty pink skin appears blotchy, the way fair people get when they’re upset. Their feelings erupt out of their skin like measles.
“My mother told me you’d be wicked,” Kammi said. “She used just that word. ‘Wicked.’”
I laugh. “Wicked” should hurt. “Why’d she say wicked? She doesn’t even know me.”
“She said you’d be angry about your mother marrying my dad. That it was natural you’d be jealous.” Kammi scratches her hands up and down the sketchpad.