The Things We Don’t Say

by Ella Carey

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Hello?” She winced at the high-pitched sound of her voice, hating the fact that she was compelled to hassle him . . .

  “Laura.”

  “Your mother lives in Edinburgh?” she said.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Scotland, then,” she said. “Today. I don’t think we have any choice.” Her words seemed to hang in the cold morning air of her flat. “If your mother were to find out about your father’s copy of the portrait from another source, could you live with that?”

  He was silent a moment. “No,” he said.

  “Ewan . . .” She closed her eyes. “Emma is more than ninety. She might have a day, a week, a month left. I understand how hard this is, but your mother is our only hope now. Wouldn’t she want to know? Do you think hiding the truth from her will in any way help anyone out of this mess?”

  “Look—”

  “Please, Ewan.”

  “I can’t put my mother through anything more. Losing her husband to suicide—”

  “Hiding the truth from her, no matter how protective you might think it is, could have implications that go on for far longer than you ever, ever could imagine. It can span generations. Believe me.”

  “Laura . . .” Ewan almost pleaded.

  She pictured her own mother and rested her hand on the table by the phone.

  “I can’t promise you anything by opening up to her,” he said.

  “I know, but what if she knows something? What if it was she who was protecting you, just as you are now?” Laura had to go on. “What if that protection, ultimately, has cost you the confidence to break out from this and to be true to your own dreams? Your father’s story, tragic as it was, haunts you, but can’t you see how his death and his sadness at losing his own dreams are stopping you from leading the life you were born to live?”

  For a few moments, there was silence. “Laura . . . I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

  “Thank you, Ewan.” Laura believed fully that hiding something from a person you loved to protect them was only ever a short-term fix—it would fester like some smoldering volcano until, eventually, it belched forth over everyone concerned.

  Emma woke with the same troubling conviction that had haunted her after she’d spoken to Laura yesterday. In looking for the answer, she’d come to find a pattern—the full circle that she’d seen all those years ago. Jerome had triggered it.

  She’d thought, back then, that she could live under her own terms, creating a life, like some artistic vision that was separate from the reality of this world. But what she’d failed to realize was that this world was, in the end, the only one we have, and even though we all have different experiences, some things are universal.

  She’d hated how Patrick’s relationships had affected him, but at the time they’d happened, all she’d wanted to do was to support and protect him. In the same way she’d tried to protect Calum and Clover from anything that might hurt. And, of course, the reason she’d wanted to protect them all, the reason she had fought so hard to build up an exclusive, safe world was because she was terrified of losing them after she’d lost Frederick in such a devastating way when she was young. It was that loss that had done it. She knew that.

  But she hadn’t seen at the time that a circle was a closed shape.

  In building up this safe world for herself, she’d not seen the darkness outside her bright circle. She’d ignored the slight twangs of guilt that she’d felt when they cast aside people who didn’t fit in—resorting to organization instead: catching trains, planning meals, renting properties, being her silent, practical self. The irony was, in spite of her tolerance and perhaps because of her strident views about it, she’d blinded herself to the truth of other people’s feelings. By living according to principles, sometimes, she’d not been receptive to others’ hurt. To her, people she did not want to tolerate were simply the books she didn’t want to open up. But by living with such firm beliefs, had she, in fact, ended up judging and treating some people more harshly than she should?

  In the end, she and Patrick had been fine—she’d been worrying about the wrong thing all these weeks. Because they always had each other. A tight circle within the larger one she’d created herself. She had been the center of it; there was no doubt about that. She was the person around whom they all orbited. And yet, had she and Patrick seemed like such an impenetrable force to those who were shut out of their world?

  It struck her how extraordinary it was that the way one saw one’s own life was so completely different from the way others interpreted it. Like a painting and a viewer, the artist could present only her version of reality, and a viewer could never really know what an artist’s true intention was. If the artist painted only the unblemished side of an apple, the viewer would never know that it was bruised. It was the same with life and other people. We humans could not ever achieve complete understanding of another person if we couldn’t truly see inside them.

  For now, all she could do was to try and realize that people—potential lovers, artists, friends—may have wanted to break into the close world she’d created. But something now was as clear as the sound of a bell. She’d failed to see beyond the covers of those who needed her to do so the most. She’d failed to see the other side of people’s anger and destructiveness for what it was—desperation, panic, and fear.

  Emma reached for the pair of reading glasses that sat on the same table she’d had by her side every night for the past forty years. All her thoughts were falling into place, like some jigsaw puzzle that she’d never seen fit to fix until now. If she were not mistaken, there was one final thing she needed to do before she left this earth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  England, 1980

  Ewan was quiet as he wound his way through England’s northern counties toward the Scottish border. Laura started up conversations, but every time she did, she ended up talking to herself. As the fields of England gave way to wilder landscapes and they crossed the ancient border into Scotland, Laura forced herself to stare at the moody hills and the tumbling streams on the sides of the road. The farther into Scotland they traveled, the broodier she felt.

  She glanced across at Ewan as they approached the city where he’d grown up. He remained a pale, sunken version of himself, and all she wanted to do was to reach out to him, to hold him, to hug him. But that would be the last thing that was appropriate right now. He was lost in his own past with his own demons—how one event had spiraled out to such great effect. As he drove through the streets of Edinburgh, rows of gray houses seemed to match the heavy, leaden sky. Ewan wound his way through the suburb of Stockbridge until he pulled up outside a tall, old, narrow house.

  He stretched his arms. Laura unbuckled her seat belt. She rested her hand on the armrest. She’d been surprised by his car. It was a Mercedes, but it was a few years old, not some new sports car. She opened the car door and stepped out into the street.

  The fresh Scottish air hit Laura’s senses, as if waking her suddenly after the long car ride north. Nerves danced inside her in a strange out-of-time jig throughout her system. She ran her eyes over the Georgian house that stood proud on the wide, tree-lined street.

  Ewan moved around the car to stand next to her.

  “She won’t talk about my father’s death,” he said. “I’ve not had a conversation about it, not a proper one, since he died.”

  “I understand,” Laura responded.

  His eyes seemed to search hers for a moment.

  “Let’s go inside.” Her words sounded soft in the still, heathery Scottish air.

  Ewan’s mother opened the front door and hugged her son. She seemed tiny, a small blonde woman enveloped in his embrace.

  “Laura,” she said, holding out her soft white hand and smiling, tucking a loose strand of blonde hair behind one ear. “I’m delighted to meet you. I’m Rosie.”

  “Hello, Rosie.” Laura held the older woman’s hand a moment.


  Ewan stood aside for Laura and Rosie to go into the house first. Rosie’s little feet clipped down the hallway along the polished floorboards, while Laura took in the black-and-white photos that lined the cream-colored walls. In the back section of the house, the kitchen was warmed by an AGA, and it was filled with the smell of freshly baked scones. A tray of them sat cooling on the bench.

  Rosie busied herself with the kettle. “I thought you’d be starving,” she said like any other normal mother greeting her son.

  Laura caught Ewan watching Rosie with a warm expression on his face that was hard to resist.

  When they were all seated at the long table in the middle of the kitchen, Rosie poured tea, her faded blonde hair falling now in loose strands onto her cheeks. Her brown eyes were mirror images of Ewan’s.

  “There,” she said, her soft Scottish accent lending the word a particular charm, as if tea settled everything.

  Ewan stood up. He moved over to the window, staring out at the heavy sky outside. Laura shot a glance from him to his mother, her heart aching for them both.

  “Mum,” he said, “there’s something I have to say.”

  London, 1921

  Emma hovered by the window in Gordon Square. Waves of loneliness flowed through her at the sight of Patrick leaving London. He raised a hand to her, tipping the brim of his hat as he ushered the man who was accompanying him to Italy into the taxi out on the street.

  Italy. A place for passion, for romantic adventure, for love. Not for Emma and Patrick but for Patrick and some random man he’d met in the National Gallery while looking at Italian art.

  Emma moved back into the living room. The rooms that she’d filled with such hope for a new life before the war seemed lifeless now.

  Patrick assured her that they’d build up a life together here after the war—they’d go to the theater at Covent Garden like she used to with Frederick. They’d work together as partners and artists during the day. They’d fill this house with the joy that had dissipated, cut off abruptly after Frederick’s tragic death and then the war. How naive she had been, thinking things might work out for them. A few afternoons snatched together at the end of the war were not the enduring love she needed. And yet, as with so many things in life, even if it was not perfect, she would do it all again.

  Emma made her way to the staircase. She would paint. But as she clipped a fresh piece of paper on her easel, she heard the sound of a car door slam. Leaning toward the window, she glanced down at the square. All she could see was a hat and a certain way of standing.

  She’d know him anywhere.

  Again, his timing was completely, utterly off.

  Emma steeled herself. Not now, she thought. Please. But she wiped her hands down the sides of her smock and slipped it over her head. When she opened the front door and he stood there, seeming uncertain of the welcome he’d receive, Emma forced herself to smile.

  “Rupert.”

  He angled forward and waited for her to kiss him on his unaccustomed, shaven cheek.

  She took a step back. Once his anger had subsided after the trauma of the war, he and Patrick had reconnected as friends. Emma was certain that it was impossible for Rupert to keep away entirely from Patrick. The three of them had been out for a drink a couple of times. Things remained awkward on Emma’s part; she had never mentioned to a soul Rupert’s approaches to her, and she was still aware that Patrick, in turn, had been genuinely in love with Rupert during the war. Were he to find out that Rupert had propositioned Emma, there was no doubt Patrick would still be hurt.

  “Are you here alone, Em?” Rupert asked. He clenched and unclenched his hands by his sides.

  Emma took in how clean they were. She was half-surprised to see that his fingernails were not encased with farmyard dirt.

  “Patrick’s just gone to Italy with his new boyfriend. Someone he met at the National Gallery apparently. I’m sorry. This is not a good time.”

  But Rupert stepped inside and picked up a little black-and-white photograph of Patrick. “How is our absent friend?”

  Emma watched the way his hand caressed Patrick’s face.

  “Rupert,” she warned.

  He placed the photograph back down on the table. Facedown, so Patrick was obliterated from sight.

  Rupert moved toward her. He took her face in the palms of his hands.

  “No, Rupert,” she said. And took a step back, disgust and an odd sense of confusion lurching around inside her at the old pain that still haunted his face.

  Hampshire, 1980

  Emma eased her way out of the taxi and stood on the smart doorstep of the elegant Georgian house. She’d not been here for a decade. Her last visit, with Patrick, had been odd in the extreme. She leaned heavily on her cane and gazed out at the valley below the house. Old villages sat nestled in perfect view from the terrace as if they hadn’t been touched for centuries.

  Civilized gentility.

  “What now, Emma?” she muttered aloud to herself. She watched the taxi disappear into the countryside.

  Emma made her slow way up the wide front steps to the house and reached up to hold the door knocker firmly despite her shaking old hand. She tapped with three loud knocks. A flurry of canine feet sounded inside the house, and a series of yaps resonated out into the warm afternoon air.

  When the door opened, she raised what was left of her once fine eyebrows.

  “Afternoon, Rupert,” she said. “Do you mind if we have a chat?”

  If Emma could have put a name to the color that flushed over Rupert’s cheeks, she would call it shocking pink.

  Edinburgh, 1980

  Laura fought with the compulsion to reach out a hand toward Ewan’s mother. Rosie sat, ramrod straight at her own kitchen table, like some valiant soldier returned from a foul war, her own personal battle stains running deeper than anyone could understand. Ewan’s mother’s face was mottled and blotched. Pale pink stains spread across her cheeks, and she pushed her tea away, letting it slide, too hard, across the table.

  Ewan caught it midpush. He placed his head in his hands. “I couldn’t tell you, Mum. I just couldn’t do it. And yet, in keeping it from both you and Laura, I let both of you down. I am so very sorry.”

  Outside in the garden, a lone bird started up a song.

  “I am certain Dad would never have done anything dishonest, that he only found out the painting was missing after he showed me through his studio. I’m sorry. It all makes ghastly sense to me now.”

  Rosie stood and moved toward the back door, opening it wide. She faced outward at the garden. Laura caught glimpses of a long, well-tended lawn bordered by flower beds, the colors bright. Rosie’s small, slim frame. If Emma painted it, she would capture the scene and the emotion behind it all so well.

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” Ewan said again.

  “Don’t be.” Rosie’s voice was hard, cracking on the upward swing. “Because I already knew.” She remained facing out at the garden.

  Laura reached a hand out to him instinctively across the table.

  Ewan didn’t seem to see her; his eyes were locked on his mother’s back. But he allowed Laura to place her hand on his own.

  “It was after your grandfather’s death that your father started painting again. But, Ewan, your father found the original Patrick Adams portrait of Emma Temple stored away in your grandfather’s house when we were cleaning things out together. That was what killed your father. Going through his collection of meticulous copies with you, that was something he was so proud to do. When he saw the Adams copy was missing, he assumed it was just sitting in his father’s storage facility. Until your father finally unwrapped the canvas when we were tidying your grandfather’s things to show it to you, as it was his favorite piece. I will never until the day I die forget the way Hamish cried when he saw that it was the original in your grandfather’s collection, not the copy he assumed it was.”

  Laura felt as if she’d been stabbed with a knife.

  “I’m certain . . . I�
��m certain that your father killed himself because he could not stand to have his name linked to any deception, especially on such a monumental scale. It was unthinkable for him.”

  Laura’s hands were wet with sweat, and her heart was thumping in her chest. She pushed back her chair, then pulled it back in.

  “Laura,” Ewan said.

  Rosie went on in a strange, disconnected tone. It was as if she was speaking with a new voice. “It wasn’t in any way your father’s fault. The painting was swapped by the owner of the gallery where he worked—”

  “Mother!”

  “Your grandfather, Ewan. He owned the gallery where Ewan now works, Laura. Duncan Buchanan was the one who did the entire deed when Ewan’s father, Hamish, was just a young art student toward the end of the war . . . Your father had no idea it had happened, Ewan, no inkling that the paintings had been swapped until twenty years afterward. Until you were a teenager, and when your father had just reconnected with the passion he’d tidied away for his art.”

  Laura tried to focus. But everything swam.

  Rosie sat down at the table, her eyes and her face a little clearer now. “You were at art school when your father died so soon after the grandfather you also adored. Eighteen—with such hopes of being an artist. I could not put you through anything more after you had to go through both of those deaths in such quick succession. I simply couldn’t tell you what your grandfather had done, not that he had unwittingly, yet entirely dishonestly, caused your father’s decline and death. You were being groomed to take over your grandfather’s gallery someday. And you adored your grandfather. I couldn’t bear for you to lose your fond memories of him, not after you’d already lost your father. You were struggling with more than enough disillusionment as it was.”

  Something worked in Ewan’s cheek, and a sharp, straight line divided his brow. His chest heaved. “No,” he said.