I tried to smile. What could I say to that? You’re older than I thought you’d be? He was, with sparse hair and a furrowed forehead; there was a grayish cast to his skin. Mr. Rawlings didn’t look like someone who got out much.
“Thanks for meeting me,” I said.
He nodded once, fumbling with his hands on the table. “You have some…questions?”
“I do. I want to know…well, everything about the paintings. Everything you can tell me.”
“I’m afraid that’s not much,” he replied. “They belonged to my grandfather. Of course he’s been dead since the sixties. It was my father who died three months ago. That’s when I got the paintings.”
His grandfather, I thought, stung by the knowledge that I’d been wrong all along: LG wasn’t a girl. “So your grandfather painted them,” I said slowly. “Do you know why? Or how? I mean…what techniques he used?”
Mr. Rawlings shook his head. “He didn’t paint them. Someone gave them to him…someone who was no relation. Her name was Lottie.”
“Do you know how she got the paintings?”
There was a pause. “I believe one of her sisters painted them. But I can’t say for certain. They’ve been locked in the attic of my father’s house for decades.”
He cleared his throat, and I perched on the edge of my chair, jittery with anticipation.
“So this is really my fault,” Mr. Rawlings continued, staring down at the table. “Honestly, I had no idea they were radioactive. I owe you an apology, I suppose.”
“Oh. It’s okay,” I replied. “I mean, you didn’t know. Who would’ve known, right? But…ah…the artist…one of Lottie’s sisters? Do you know anything about her, anything at all? Like her name or anything?”
“She had two sisters, Lydia and Liza,” Mr. Rawlings said. “No one ever really talked about them. But I do have…”
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of wrinkled envelopes, yellow with age. The spidery cursive on the front was hard to read.
“These letters might interest you,” he continued. “One of Lottie’s sisters wrote them to my grandfather, around when the paintings were made, I think. My grandmother hated that he kept these letters. She never understood why he wouldn’t just throw them away.”
“Can I read them?”
“You can keep them.” Mr. Rawlings shrugged. “I don’t have any use for them.” He glanced at his watch. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
I shook my head slowly, torn by my eagerness to dive into the letters and a nagging, pinching sense that I was forgetting something. But I couldn’t figure out what it was. “Thank you for…” I waved my hand over the letters. “For these. For meeting me.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Mr. Rawlings replied as he pulled himself up.
I watched him shuffle toward the door and walk outside. Then lightning crackled through my brain, and I ran after him.
“Mr. Rawlings!” I shouted. “Wait!”
He was stepping into his car, but he turned around to face me.
“Who told you the paintings are radioactive?” I asked breathlessly. “How did you find out?”
A wrinkle of confusion creased his forehead. Then, like an afterthought, he said, “Oh. That woman from the consignment store who called me. On account of the EPA had been to her store and taken my contact information.”
“The EPA,” I repeated.
He chuckled. “She sure has a nose for business, doesn’t she? Asked me if I’d be interested in doing any media interviews. Said she’d be happy to set something up…manage any appearances for me. For a small ‘cut,’ she said.”
“Media?” The news van on my street. Driving toward my house. Oh my God, I thought, sparkles of panic exploding at the corner of my eyes. Everyone will know. Everyone.
“Well, yes,” Mr. Rawlings said. “But they’re not going to get anything from me. You have those letters now. You can decide what to do with them.”
He got into the car, waiting patiently for me to remove my hands from the hood. It was too hot to touch, really, but I didn’t know how else to steady myself. I couldn’t go home. That was certain. Not with the news van lurking on my street, satellite ready to broadcast my horror story on the six o’clock news. So I’d have to read the letters somewhere else.
And I knew who should read them with me.
Chapter 24
September 14, 1918
Dearest Walter,
Liza died Tuesday last.
To the end, we all pretended—even she pretended—that she could yet recover, even when she struggled so to breathe, even when the pus and blood flowed down her neck and soaked her nightdress. It was the last, worst lie of her life; may it be mine as well.
When it was so horrible, I thought often of how great our relief would be when her suffering was finally over. In the earliest hours of Tuesday morn, when all the world was still and dark, Mother and I held Liza’s hands as she exhaled—no soft, gentle sigh; it was the wet rattle of a gutter overburdened with fallen leaves—and a terrible silence followed. We waited, electric with tension, for a breath that never came, that would not come again. As Mother started to weep, softly so that she wouldn’t wake Charlotte, I realized how wrong I had been when I imagined that we might feel relief. Because all that I feel is the enormous hole her passing has left in my life. In my heart.
I have always mapped my course to follow Liza and find myself adrift in uncharted waters without her.
Charlotte is gone, which is as it should be. Better for her, really. Whatever happens next, I would rather she not be here to see it. She disappeared after the funeral, and we found a note in her room explaining that she has volunteered for service as an army nurse. I cannot explain it, but I have a strong conviction that your paths will cross overseas. If so, please give her my love and the enclosed letter addressed to her. I always wanted my Charlotte to have adventures; somehow, through the heavy cloak of grief, it is a great comfort to imagine all the wonders of the wide world unfurling for her.
I come now to the most difficult part of this letter, Walter, which is informing you that it will be the last one you receive from me. I want you to know that I must stop writing to you not for lack of love, but for a surfeit of it.
I am sure that you remember, my dear Walter, the summer before last, when the war had scarcely just begun, and you told me of your intentions to enlist. I am sure you remember what we discussed that soft summer night on the rooftop as we watched for shooting stars. I cannot keep the promise that we made, and I do not expect you to keep it, either. Therefore, with this letter, I release you of all your obligations to me.
The time may come when you hear unkind words spoken about me. I hope that you will remember that you have always, always, always had my steadfast fidelity, and you must never doubt for a moment that I have, in all my words and deeds, been true.
I would ask of you one favor, Walter. If you have saved my letters, please burn them…or bury them. Do whatever you must do to destroy them, but do not keep them. The ones that glow, the ones with the secret messages painted in the margins, are the most dangerous of them all.
I still have hope for a brighter world. I imagine a world without war, where no one needs a watch that glows so that he will be better coordinated for killing in the dark. I imagine a world where Liza wears white not for her burial but for her bridegroom. I imagine a world where we dance at her wedding.
I imagine a world where I wait for you on the rooftop. As the first stars appear, I see you approach. I climb into the back of the airplane, and together we fly away, fly away, fly away from all the things that are broken and dying to that brighter world that still gives me hope.
All my love,
Lydia
Chapter 25
We sat side by side on Lauren’s bed, hunched over each letter, speaking only when one of us had trouble reading Lydia’s elaborate cursive. By the time we finished the last letter, I felt as fragmented as a Picasso. Li
ke a balloon with a slow leak, all the exhilaration and anticipation seeped out of me, leaving me hollow and deflated and terribly, terribly sad.
“So,” Lauren finally said.
“So,” I repeated.
“So this guy you met today,” she said. “How was he connected to the letters?”
“He got them from his grandfather,” I said, trying to piece it together. “So his grandfather was…Walter?”
“Then how did Walter get the paintings?”
“From a woman named Lottie,” I said. “Who was…Charlotte?”
“What about the letter Lydia wrote to Charlotte?” Lauren asked, looking in the last envelope again.
I shook my head. “It’s not here. He must’ve given it to her. Oh, Lauren, do you think Walter and Charlotte really saw each other during the war?”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “Or maybe it just got lost. It’s been, what, a hundred years?”
“The diary belonged to Liza,” I said. “And the love note…that must’ve been written by Mr. Mills.”
“Weird, isn’t it?” she asked. “He sounded like such a creep when Lydia wrote about him. Hard to believe the same guy could write a letter like that.”
She started rustling through the letters. “These letters bring up more questions than they answer. What happened to Lydia? And Charlotte? And Walter? Mr. Mills…did he really have syphilis? Or did he get sick from the radium too? I want to know what happened next!”
But that’s not how life works. I thought briefly of Dad. People enter and leave your life when you least expect it. You don’t always get to know the whole story.
But what I said was: “Well, we have their names. We can google them. We can google radium watches. And find out more about the American Radium Company.”
“These letters are practically useless. I mean, you still don’t even really know who did all those paintings you found,” she pointed out. “It sounds like Lydia and Liza were both working on canvases, right?”
“Right,” I said slowly.
“Then again, when would Lydia have had the time?” Lauren asked. “She was working, like, eighteen-hour days. But after she got sick, Liza was home all day with nothing to do. And they had the same initials. Liza Grayson and Lydia Grayson. So some of the paintings could be Liza’s, and some could be Lydia’s.”
“I guess.”
“Or even Charlotte’s! With her nickname and all.”
“It had to be Lydia,” I insisted. “Like what she wrote in the last letter, about the airplane flying away? That perfectly matches the first painting.”
“True,” Lauren acknowledged. Then she started folding the letters, matching each one to its correct envelope by comparing the letter’s date to the envelope’s postmark. I took a deep breath. I had already told Lauren how incredibly relieved I was that her blood tests were normal, but there was still something big I had to say…and just one chance to say it.
“So these letters. They’re not the only reason I came over.”
She looked at me with her eyebrows arched.
“Wait. Turn around. I can’t look at you.”
Lauren scooted around so that we sat back-to-back. I could feel all the knobby bumps of her spine grazing against my own.
“That stuff I said?” I began. “Awful. Unforgivable. I’m sorry.”
“No, wait,” Lauren said. “I’m going first. You have to let me go first. You were right. I was attacking you over the paintings.”
“I deserved it.”
“I’m not done.” Lauren shifted uncomfortably. “I was…ugh, this is hard to say. The way everything fell apart for you…I didn’t know what to do. How to fix it. So I pretended like nothing had happened…which probably made it harder.”
“It did,” I admitted in a whisper. “And you were right. I was jealous.”
“Are you still mad?”
“Are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then neither am I.”
She shifted on the bed and winced a little.
“Okay, what is up with you?” I finally asked, turning around. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she mumbled, looking away.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “Spill it.”
Two pink circles flushed on her cheeks while I waited. Finally, Lauren sighed. Here it comes, I thought.
“So, you know how I was gonna get that tattoo?” she said.
“Oh. My. God,” I exclaimed. “You did it! Oh my God! Where? Show me!”
“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head. “It’s, uh, it’s on my butt.”
“What?” I shrieked. “I cannot even believe you! God, I really want to see it. At least tell me what it is.”
She smiled a little. “It’s a laurel wreath,” she said. “You know, like in ancient Greece? For victors? And, you know, my name…comes from the word laurel—”
“Nice,” I said. “Very symbolic. Did it hurt? Like, a lot?”
“Honestly? It was like getting bit in the ass by a sparkler,” she said. “And I haven’t been able to sit down right since!”
I burst out laughing so hard, for maybe the first time all summer.
Lauren’s phone started to ring. She glanced at it and passed it to me. “It’s your mom.”
“Do I have to?”
“Just get it over with.”
“Hello, Mom,” I said into the phone. “What’s up?”
“Where are you? I’ve called you five times.”
“I’m at Lauren’s. Sorry. My phone must’ve died.”
“You need to come home now.”
“Is there, um, a news van outside?”
Mom paused. “Not anymore.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a while.”
“Julie.”
“Fine. Ten minutes.”
I handed the phone back to Lauren. “So when do you move into your dorm?” I asked as I dug around in my bag for my own phone. Once it finally powered up, I realized that my mom had called nine times, not five. But who’s counting?
“A week from tomorrow. I’m never gonna finish everything I have to do.”
“Well, I can come over and help you pack. If you want me to.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Thanks. I’ll call you.”
“Okay, then,” I said as I slipped the letters into my bag. “See you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And, you know, if I don’t see you again before I leave—”
In the pause that followed, I looked right at Lauren, almost unrecognizable to me with her newly dyed chestnut hair, chopped to her chin; ice-blue eyeliner making her eyes even bigger and paler. But there was still so much about her that was familiar—the ghosted scar above her right eye from that time we got wasted and she walked into a door; the freckle near her lip that looked like a tiny smudge of chocolate. I had to believe that our friendship was like that, that somewhere beneath all the quicksilver transformations, there was a foundation that would never change. No matter what.
“I really hope you’ll visit me in New York,” she finally continued. “Whenever you want. Anytime.”
“Anytime,” I repeated.
Then I gave her a little wave, and I left.
* * *
When I got home, Mom was waiting for me in the living room with two glasses of soda. I knew this routine. We were about to have a Talk. I perched on the far end of the couch, staring at the tiny bubbles dancing through my glass. There was no gradual way to do this; I had to steamroll my way into an apology.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I said. “I didn’t mean any of those things I said. I know how much you’ve done for me. I know how much I owe you. I—”
“No, Julie, you don’t owe me anything,” she interrupted. “I just want you to sit and listen for a few minutes, okay?”
I nodded.
“I’m doing everything I can to sell this house. I don’t know how long it will take. It could take months. Maybe even years. But when it does, you’ll get all your
money back. I promise.”
“I don’t want it back,” I mumbled. “I just want to tell you…how sorry I am—”
“Julie. Look at me.”
She didn’t speak until I raised my eyes to her face. “I said something that I didn’t mean…Well, I meant it in a way, but it came out wrong,” she tried to explain. “When I said that I wanted you gone—”
“Mom—”
She held up her hand. “From the first second I held you, I’ve always known that the most painful moment of my life would be the day you left,” she said. “And yet I knew that my job—my only job—was to get you ready for that day. To give you everything you could possibly need to soar on your own. So it came as such a surprise this summer to realize that it was even more painful to see you left behind. And to know that I was to blame.
“So yes, I suppose I do want you to go,” she finished. “But only because you’re ready, Julie. I hope you know that anywhere I am will always be your home. Always.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“I want to tell you something else,” she said, framing my face in her hands and staring into my eyes with such ferocity that I didn’t dare look away. “The day you were born was the happiest day of my life. Of my life. I held you in my arms and marveled at you for hours: how perfect you were in every way, how much I wanted to give you the whole world and everything in it. I wanted every day of your life to be full of this unspeakable, uncontainable joy, my precious child, my reason for everything, and that’s why I named you Jubilee.
“That’s why I will sell this house,” she continued, wiping tears from my face, then hers. “It’s time you went out in the world to find your joy.”
My phone rang then, as phones do at the worst possible time. I didn’t recognize the number. I had to let it ring again, had to pause before answering the call that would change my life so that the person on the other end wouldn’t know I was crying.
“Hello?”
* * *
Almost two weeks passed before I saw Luke again; it took me that long to work up the courage to return his texts. When I thought about how ready I’d been to sleep with him, in the mud, on the worst night of my life, I wanted to pull my hair over my face and hide. I wanted to die of shame.
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