In the negative she held between her fingers, she stood in the backyard of the house where she’d grown up, on an early summer day with birds cartwheeling across the sky. Her body was turned sideways, her hair curling over one shoulder, her hands circling the broad expanse of her belly—one above, one below—in a pose almost identical to that of her sister nine years earlier, completely unaware anyone was taking her picture.
“Oh, Natalie,” she whispered, wondering where the photograph was that went with the negative. “What did you do?”
ELEVEN
How glad Finch was for the excuse of the holidays. Back in the cozy warmth of his own familiar rooms, the city glowing with temporary good cheer, peace on earth, kindness to one’s fellow human beings. Dinners with Lydia and her husband became something to look forward to, in part because the menu changed to reflect the generosity of the season, and for these few shining weeks, he could partake of food he enjoyed: potpies with their napped, buttery crusts; roasts with interesting chutneys—quince! Why didn’t he eat quince more often? It was delightful! Potatoes that were whipped and swirled, peaked and marshmallowed. It was even possible to finagle Kevin, his son-in-law, into slipping him the occasional tipple of eggnog when Lydia’s back was turned.
His daughter’s Federal-style row house was festooned with greenery, evergreens dripping from the chandeliers and spiraling around the banister. There was mistletoe, with its ghostly spray of pale berries, suspended from a fixture in the front hall. After a glass of port, he had but to close his eyes and Claire was waiting for him to slip his arm around her waist and waltz her slowly across the room until they stopped directly beneath it. The ivory curve of her neck beckoned, and her delighted trill danced in his ears. Denny, she would say in a slightly breathless whisper, her mouth pressed against the shoulder of his jacket. Time to go home now, don’t you think? And when he looked down at her face she would smile at him and wink. Ah, there was nothing subtle about that woman when she wanted something, and his happiest memories were of those times she had wanted him.
Thanksgiving, just the week before, had been worse than he could have imagined. He and Lydia had muddled through the anniversary of Claire’s death together, even though their grief and grieving weren’t the same. Lydia was silent when he offered up memories of her mother, seeming content just to spend time with him, while he was comforted by saying Claire’s name out loud, squeezing her into sentences and paragraphs and rambling stories where she took center stage. Thanksgiving itself had been a maudlin affair; the holiday table groaning under the weight of too many dishes. He and Lydia pushed food around their plates, not interested in eating, leaving Kevin to supply the small talk that served as a bridge between their mourning. After the meal, he’d walked into the kitchen to find Lydia standing in front of the open refrigerator like a waitress, plates of food slicked over with plastic wrap balanced up and down her arms, but no place to squeeze them in.
That night the two of them had promised each other that they wouldn’t spend Christmas or New Year’s in the same way.
“She would hate this,” he’d said.
“Yes,” Lydia had replied. “She would be very angry with us.”
“Likely throw things. Breakables. I’m not willing to risk it. Are you?” She’d shaken her head, laughing and throwing herself into his arms. And so they moved forward from there.
Finch felt his spirits lift as the season bloomed. He knew this, too, was because of Claire, not so much because she’d loved the holiday but because she’d loved what it did to him: turned him giddy with happiness and overwhelming gratitude. Count your blessings, he’d say to himself year after year, and he had: Claire, Lydia, a satisfaction with his life’s work, the ability to acknowledge it for what it had been. That was more than enough. He was a sentimental fool, to be sure, but this was the time of year he welcomed it. Finch, he told himself, you could use a little peace on earth.
He was beginning to think the whole thing with Thomas was a mistake, just a sad, sordid chapter from his past he was determined to resurrect. In spite of finding Thomas’s study of the Kessler family in the Edells’ back hall, he and Stephen were no closer to finding the other two pieces of the triptych than they’d been when they started. He’d finally convinced Stephen that it might be wise to spend some time apart, focusing on their respective strengths in an effort to turn up some new information. Frankly, Finch was looking forward to spending a few weeks not thinking about any of it. He hummed a carol while he rolled up his sleeves and patted the outside of a roasting chicken with salt and pepper.
“Claire,” he said aloud, between verses, “I plan to prepare a green vegetable for myself this evening, in keeping with the spirit of the season.” Even the ring of the phone couldn’t shake him from his reverie, and he was delighted to see Lydia’s number on the display.
“Darling daughter. Apple of my eye. You’ll be happy to know that I bought broccoli today when I was at the store and may even go so far as to cut up some of the dastardly green crowns to have with my dinner.”
“Dad? Are you feeling all right?”
“Right as rain. Snow if we’re lucky. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?”
“I was calling to invite you to join us for dinner on Saturday. If you’re free.”
“Love to! Can’t think of anything I’d rather do. Can I bring something?”
“That was Stephen’s exact response. You two have been spending so much time together, I believe you’re starting to think alike.”
Finch felt his mood dipping precariously. “Jameson? What does he have to do with this?” Surely she hadn’t . . .
“I invited him to join us, too.”
She had. He could barely contain a groan. “Lydia, listen here. I’m old enough to arrange my own playdates. If I wanted to eat dinner with Stephen, I’d call him up and say, ‘Stephen let’s have dinner.’ And I don’t recall having done that.”
“Dad, it’s the holidays. He’s alone. You said yourself that you thought he’d benefit from having a little more social interaction. Consider it a charitable act.”
There had been charity enough as far as he was concerned. For too many hours in the close confines of a poorly ventilated car he had been forced to listen to Stephen’s discourses on wavelet decomposition and the wondrous methods now being used to convert a painting to a digital image in order to analyze it mathematically and statistically.
“And the purpose of all of this analyzing . . .” he’d said.
Stephen’s eyes had glowed with delight at being asked to elaborate. “To allow us to chart techniques particular to a specific artist, and to the artist’s use of certain mediums. Giving us another tool that can be used to identify forgeries or works not done in their entirety by the artist to whom the work is attributed. Think of it. At some point in the not too distant future, science will allow us to ascertain authenticity to an absolute degree.”
“How lovely,” Finch said. “And in the midst of all this decomposing, does anyone stop to consider the painting? The subject matter? The emotion the artist was trying to translate?”
“Please.” Stephen had waved his hand dismissively. “When was the last time you went to an exhibition? Do you know what’s happening there?”
“When was the last time you did?”
“I asked first.”
“Ridiculous,” Finch had said. “This argument is ludicrous.”
“I don’t believe ludicrous is the word you want. My argument is far from senseless and is in no way absurd or farcical.”
“You are giving me a headache.”
“If you had simply answered my question . . . people go to museums to see an exhibition someone has told them they have to see. The implication being that unless they see this particular exhibition, and have the appropriate reaction to the work, they have no real appreciation for art. So they stumble around a crowded space, wearing headphones and squinting at captions in tiny print. This is nothing more than a mo
del designed to exploit herd mentality. People are told what to think about a painting, what they should see in it. They’re denied the opportunity to stand back and contemplate perspective or technique without the benefit of someone else’s overly large head getting in the way. Then they collapse onto banquettes that are too hard and have accommodated far too many people with who knows what standards of hygiene. Honestly, Finch. I hardly think emotion plays a role in the experience at all.”
It made him want to hit something or, more accurately, someone. The thought of such thinly veiled belligerence serving as dinner conversation in the sanctity of his daughter’s home was more than Finch could bear. And he was in no mood to act as Stephen’s keeper for the night.
“Lydia, perhaps it would be better if we changed the parameters of the invitation. Maybe we could meet Stephen at a restaurant, instead?” He regretted ever introducing the two of them, though since Stephen had been at his apartment when Lydia stopped by with Kevin, he’d had little choice. The flash in Stephen’s eyes when he took Lydia’s hand had made Finch immediately suspicious. Smitten. Just like that. Stephen’s face had melted into bovine simplicity as his eyes watched Lydia’s every move. It was unconscionable.
“You said he’s not very good in public places.”
“Did I? I don’t recall. I may have been exaggerating.”
“Dad, it will be fine. You’ll see.”
How could it possibly be fine? He’d lost all interest in dinner. It wasn’t until the smell of singed chicken skin filled the house that he remembered his meal at all. The remains of the bird, dry and crusted, were relegated to the sink, the broccoli returned to its plastic bag in the refrigerator. Finch retreated to his study, taking solace in a chocolate Santa he had surreptitiously removed from a dish next to the teller’s window at the bank. He became more angry with Stephen as the evening wore on. Why must he usurp my family?
But the moment the thought entered his head, there was Claire, chiding him for his stingy behavior.
He is in need of a friend, Denny. As are you.
“I have friends.”
You don’t. Not to put too fine a point on it, my dear, but we had friends. You have acquaintances. It isn’t the same thing.
“I only want you. You and Lydia. I don’t need anyone else.”
You have me. And you will always have Lydia. But you know as well as I do that that’s not the same thing either. Her image frayed before him, then evaporated. A flickering bulb, dimmed.
He poked the logs in the fireplace, poured himself a glass of burgundy, and fiddled with the digital music player that had been a gift from his daughter, thinking Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus a suitable companion for his evening’s work. His desk was a disaster zone, a week’s worth of mail hidden beneath stacks of files which Mrs. Blankenship had dropped off for him, years of Thomas’s mail and clippings, which Stephen had suggested Finch search through in hopes of finding something pertinent. With a new appreciation for Mrs. Blankenship, Finch tried to think of the task as something other than secretarial, but his mood worsened as he leafed through the odd collection of papers, many of them a tallow yellow and crumbling round the edges.
There were announcements of shows from years ago, faded newspaper pictures with gallery owners and patrons circled around Thomas, who often seemed to be contemplating something in the far-off distance with an expression of bemusement. There were the expected offers of teaching positions, invitations to speak, and pleas from young artists offering to size canvases, sharpen pencils, haul slop, anything to be able to share the same rarefied air with someone who possessed, as one supplicant put it, “a supreme knowledge of that which is universal within us all.”
Tripe. Finch rubbed his forehead, hoping to alleviate the tightness spreading between his brows. Such adulation was exhausting to read about. But to experience it, day after day? No wonder Thomas had become reclusive. Weaned as he was on constant attention and praise, groomed to engender superlatives, it was understandable that at some point admiration had ceased to mean anything to him, that he’d reached the point where all he wanted was to be alone. When one was the recipient of a great gift, was one forced to live in service to that gift, unable to do anything else?
But the more Thomas withdrew, the greater a subject of fascination he became. Where did he live? How did he live? What inspired him? If he was discovered frozen in a block of ice on the peak of Kangchenjunga, there would be those who’d opt to cut open his brain to determine what accounted for his talent. The clingers and the hangers-on, the wannabes and the has-beens, and those-who-never-would-be; no one in their right mind would ask for such a life, if they understood the consequences of it.
Finch continued thumbing through the stack, trying to establish some order. Bills that had never been opened. Bank statements, unused check registers, reviews that had been forwarded by Thomas’s various representatives over the years. Letters, most marked “personal” (underlined), all addressed in an obviously female hand, although few had been opened. Finch flipped through them, distracted, until one caught his eye. In the upper left hand corner of a card-size envelope was printed, “700 Stonehope Way, Woodridge, Connecticut.” The house he and Stephen had just visited. The Kessler house.
The envelope wasn’t sealed, although it was hard for Finch to know whether the glue had failed with age or the envelope had been opened. The postmark was difficult to make out, but it looked like the letter had been mailed on either the eleventh or seventeenth of June 1972. He worked a snug card out from the envelope and set it on the desk. It was from a museum gift shop, the type of card produced to accompany traveling exhibitions. The picture on the front was one of Thomas’s earlier works, an oil painting of three women standing in a dark hallway dragging branches of ash behind them, their hair rising up from their heads in snakelike coils, shooting toward a ceiling lit by one bare bulb. When he opened the card, a photograph fell out. “Thomas,” he whispered, feeling the air knocked out of him in a single punch.
The picture was of a young and very pregnant Alice Kessler, standing in the backyard of her home on Stonehope Way, cradling her belly. And written in flowing, liquid script on the back of the photograph were the words I know what you did. N.
Finch pushed his chair back from the desk and walked over to the fireplace, carrying the photo with him. He sat down on the leather ottoman, holding the edges of the photograph with both hands. There was a sick panic in his stomach, and he wished he could reverse the last minute, pushing the picture back into the card, the card back into the envelope, the envelope back into the stack, flipping past it without ever taking notice of the address.
What had Thomas said to him? No more than I have envied you the companionship of a daughter. Finch felt the weight of overwhelming sadness press down on him, thinking of Lydia, unable to consider the absence of her, a hole in his life never to be filled. He looked at the postmark on the envelope again—June 1972—and tried to recall that year, whether he had noticed anything different, anything unusual in Thomas’s behavior. As soon as he started thinking along this line, he abandoned it. In the first place, it was more than thirty-five years ago. He had reached the age where it was a struggle to remember in what room he’d left his shoes, his password for the computer, the names of his graduate students, even the pretty girl with the red hair and the low-cut blouse, the one who leaned in dangerously close to him in a cloud of woodsy scent whenever she visited his office.
Beyond questioning the accuracy of his memory, there was an implication in looking back so far that his life has been intimately intertwined with Thomas’s; that they’d shared confidences, sought each other’s opinions, revealed their deepest hopes and fears, even in the veiled masculine language of their generation. This was untrue. Finch had accepted it when climbing the long flights of stairs to Thomas’s apartment just over a month ago. They did not have a friendship in the true sense of the word. Their relationship was symbiotic at best, based on mutual need.
And
what Thomas needed now was for Finch and Stephen to find his child.
How old was he when he’d found out—thirty-seven? Had he not been ready to have a child in his life even then, after the years of women and parties; of indulgence coupled with self-imposed isolation, dropping away from the world when it proved too much for him, resurfacing to be lionized once again. And now, when he was frail and impaired, this was when he chose to be a father? Finch felt Claire’s hand on his shoulder and leaned into her, almost losing his balance. Why do you assume he didn’t want the child, Denny? You’re that sure of his heart?
“I can’t stand to hear you defend him. Not now. Why don’t you defend me?”
I suppose because you’ve done nothing to require it, you foolish gizzard.
That private endearment funneled into his ear and was more than Finch could bear. His longing for her physical presence eclipsed everything else; he was desperate to hold her, to have her sitting next to him and touch the side of her cheek, to bury his head in her chest and take in the spicy smell of carnation soap that lingered on her skin. The ethereal substitute sent to him in her stead had no more weight than a breeze, a dash of smoke. He pulled away.
She turned up her nose, insulted. Suit yourself, then. Within moments the air next to him turned cold and heavy, and he shivered even though he was sitting next to the fire. It didn’t matter. Her words had accomplished what she’d intended, as always.
Why had he assumed Thomas didn’t want the baby? Admittedly, Finch knew nothing of the situation beyond the photograph he held in his hands. He had not been privy to any conversations or decisions, did not know the outcome. His conclusion was based entirely on the flaws and faults he’d ascribed to Thomas over the years. Or had it been instead the result of his own insecurity, his need to be the better man in at least this one respect—as a father?
The Gravity of Birds: A Novel Page 21