The Curiosities

by Susan Gloss

  “Don’t you just want to get lost?” she’d asked him outside the door of St. Mark’s Basilica. “I feel like this city is begging for it.”

  Walt had replied, “Is that your way of trying to throw me over? Telling me I need to get lost?”

  “Never,” she’d said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him.

  Tonight, though, Betsy led him through cobbled streets, turning wherever she pleased. She followed the babble of water to a small fountain shooting straight from the side of a building. She dipped her fingers into the stone cistern below it, thinking of how many hands had been washed, how many vessels had been filled over the centuries in this very spot. In a tiny square, crisscrossed overhead by clotheslines, she paused to listen to a man plucking at a guitar. All the while, Walt walked beside her or, when required, behind.

  Finally, Betsy stopped and sat on the steps of what looked like a school, emptied out for the evening. The construction-paper stars and crayoned drawings taped inside the windows struck a stark contrast to the building’s formal, ancient exterior, which consisted of grand arched doorways and marble carvings.

  Walt sat next to her and nudged her knee with his own. “What is it?”

  Betsy let out a long exhale. “I’m scared,” she finally said.

  He furrowed his brow. The concern in his expression filled her heart with affection for him all over again. She really did love this man. But . . .

  “Look, I’ll just say it. I’ve seen so many of the girls I grew up with get married and live identical lives. Dinner on the table. Diapers in the wash. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that. It’s important, if that’s the life you want. But it’s not the life I want. So if you do, then I’m not the right girl for you.”

  Walt put his arm around Betsy’s shoulders and squeezed them. “You’re exactly the right girl for me. You think I haven’t noticed that you’re not just like everyone else? It’s what I love about you. You want something different, something more. So do I.”

  “What about college? I still have a year left at Mount Mary.” Betsy thought about how several of her classmates had dropped out after they got engaged or married. And how she had worked so hard to get a scholarship from her neighborhood parish.

  “Finish your degree,” Walt said. “There’s no reason you have to choose one or the other.”

  Betsy tilted her head to look at this man, whom she’d met on the train from Milwaukee to Chicago just a few months earlier and seen every day since. He had boundless energy. For ideas, experiences, and, most especially, people. He listened to people. Figured out what made them tick. Remembered details no one else would notice. These traits crossed cultural barriers, too, to the point where he could have dinner with a group of Milanese executives who spoke minimal English and have everyone laughing and lingering at the table long after they’d finished their espressos.

  “I have something else to admit to you,” Betsy said.

  “What’s that?”

  She gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten us hopelessly lost.”

  “Congratulations,” he said. “You’ve accomplished your goal.” He got up and pulled Betsy to her feet. “Look, I don’t want a wife, if by that you mean someone to iron my shirts and make dinner. There are half a dozen perfectly good restaurants within a mile of my house in Madison and, as for the shirts, I send them out. I don’t want a wife, and I don’t need kids, either. Let other people have them. I want you. Your smarts. Your style. Your sense of adventure. Not every woman would hop a plane to Italy with the likes of me on short notice, you know. Or toss back grappa without so much as a grimace at a union tavern.”

  Betsy recalled the disapproval on her mother’s face when she told her mother about the trip. “A man taking a girl your age clear overseas is going to have a lot of expectations, you know.” She’d put her hands on her hips and looked heavenward. “Your father must be rolling in his grave.”

  But to the extent her mother had been talking about sex, she needn’t have been worried. Walt was a perfect gentleman, booking Betsy her own room wherever they went. And now he’d proposed marriage. Her mother would have been thrilled, but here Betsy was, hemming and hawing over her answer.

  They started back in what Betsy thought was the direction of the hotel. “I’m not sure this is right,” she said as they turned onto a street of small retail shops, each selling a different specialty—watches, leather goods, lace. One store sold exquisite jewelry and figurines made from Venetian glass. In the window, a parade of tiny animals twirled on an automated carousel made from orange and yellow glass and adorned with ribbons. Betsy stopped to marvel at the exquisite detail of the translucent zebras, ostriches, and tigers that danced in delicate poses under the display lights, no one animal exactly like the other.

  The shopkeeper, a middle-aged man in a starched shirt and wool trousers, stood outside the door with keys in hand, about to close for the day. Walt waved and said, “Aspetta!”

  The shopkeeper paused and, after an exchange in rapid Italian, he opened the door.

  “Wait here,” Walt said to Betsy, and he ducked inside the shop. She watched through the window as Walt pointed to something in the window display, something she hadn’t seen a moment earlier because she’d been so fixated on the moving carousel.

  Nearly hidden behind a display of gold-plated goblets stood a small globe fashioned from blown glass. The continents, each a different color, looked like puzzle pieces stretched with care over swirling seas in variegated shades of blue. The shopkeeper went over to the window and picked up the globe from the marble pedestal on which it sat. Betsy watched as Walt paid for the item and the shopkeeper packaged it inside a red cardboard box.

  Walt came back out holding the box in his hands. He waited until the shopkeeper had locked up and walked away before saying, “I take back my earlier proposal.”

  “What?” Betsy’s heart pounded. Once again, she’d mucked things up with too much thinking. Now, the way her head went hot and her vision went blurry at the thought of losing him, she knew her answer. “You don’t have to—”

  But Walt interrupted her. “It was all wrong.”

  “No.” Betsy shook her head. “A bridge in Venice? I don’t think a girl could dream up anything better.”

  “Maybe that would do for other girls, but not for you. Forget the ring. You can have it later if you want, but this is what I should have done.”

  He got to one knee now, for the second time that evening, and held out the red box.

  Betsy said yes first this time, and then opened the box.

  There, nestled among crinkly folds of gold tissue paper, was the world.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Nell

  PIECE: Tiffany silver frame engraved with the monogram WBE.

  By the time Nell finished her trips to and from the secondhand shop, she was exhausted from hauling the heavy plastic bins and bundles of garment bags. When she returned to the mansion after her final run to the shop, she went upstairs and stood inside Betsy’s now empty closet, feeling a sense of accomplishment but also a twinge of sadness. There had been something comforting about having all those clothes hanging there, their textures and colors and patterns providing a glimpse into the personality of the woman who wore them.

  Nell shut the closet door, turning to look around the large master bedroom. With a little bit of work, it could easily serve as a bedroom or studio for someone from the next group of artists, whoever they might be. Applications had already begun to arrive in the mail.

  Nell had done enough for one day, though. She’d tackle this room another time. For now, she just collected a few items from the top of the dresser and placed them into a drawer—a crystal ring holder, a mother-of-pearl hand mirror, and a tarnished silver frame holding a black-and-white photo of the Barretts on their wedding day. Betsy, in a full-skirted gown with lace sleeves, had her gaze turned on Walt instead of the camera. In turn, Walt, tall and handsome in a white jacket and black bow t
ie, looked down at Betsy with a glint in his eye and an openmouthed smile, as if he’d been caught laughing at something she’d said when the shutter went off. The photo reminded Nell of the conversation she’d had earlier with Violet at Hourglass Vintage about the Barretts.

  “I can’t help taking a peek at a few of these items right away,” Violet had said, unfolding a tweed Chanel jacket from one of the boxes. “Betsy had such fantastic taste.”

  A woman who’d been browsing the racks near the register stopped to gape at the handbags, coats, and glittering costume jewelry that Violet was piling up on the counter.

  “Where did all that come from?” the customer asked.

  “A dear friend who died,” Violet said. “She was so generous to leave all these things to the shop.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “She didn’t have a daughter or granddaughter who would have wanted them?”

  “She didn’t have any children,” Violet said.

  The woman clucked her tongue. “Such a shame. To have all those beautiful things and no one to pass them on to.”

  Violet shook her head. “Betsy didn’t think so. She never wanted children.”

  Those words stuck with Nell. Back when she first accepted the directorship, she’d assumed that for one reason or another, the Barretts weren’t able to have children. It was uncommon for a couple of their generation not to have a family. But the more she learned about Betsy, the more Nell had begun to suspect that the Colony’s benefactor chose the life she had. And today Violet had confirmed it.

  Now, as she left Betsy’s room and let herself out of the house, Nell thought about the legacy of the woman who had lived there. Betsy didn’t have a human heir out there in the world, carrying on her name or the particular slant of her nose. But she’d lived a rich life, crossing continents and meeting fascinating people. She’d left behind a collection of artwork that would continue to touch people’s lives with beauty, introspection, and joy. And, through the Colony, Betsy had made sure that—at least in one house, on the shores of one lake—a handful of artists would continue to cultivate and create more of the same.

  When Nell arrived home, she was startled to find Josh sitting on the floor on the living room rug. As she came closer, she saw that their baby’s memory box had been taken down from the mantel where Nell kept it. The box lay open on the coffee table, its pink ribbon untied and cast aside. Josh sat in the middle of a circle of items—a hospital bracelet, tiny footprints cast in plaster, a copy of a blessing read at the memorial service held in the hospital’s chapel.

  Nell knew the items by heart. If Josh had suddenly grabbed an item without her looking, and hidden it behind his back, she could have described the missing keepsake in seconds. It was like that game played sometimes at kids’ birthday parties, where a grown-up brings in a tray with a random assortment of items—a pencil, an orange, a penny, a plastic army guy, and a paper cup—and then the tray is taken out of the room and one item removed. When the grown-up returns, the kids have to guess what’s missing.

  It was that way with the box.

  Josh sat clutching something in his closed palm. He startled when he saw Nell standing in the room, and slowly opened up his hand.

  “I didn’t know we had this,” he said, revealing a wisp of hair so short and fine it was held together with a piece of thread. He nodded toward the other items spread out on the table and floor. “I didn’t know we had any of this.” He picked up the white knit hat a nurse had placed on their daughter’s head. “Do you remember how perfectly round her head was? It’s a weird thing to remember, I guess, but people are always talking about how newborns’ heads are misshapen. But not hers. It was perfect.”

  Nell began to cry. Fat tears fell onto the rug and sank into the tufted wool.

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said. “I didn’t want to upset you.” He moved to get up from the floor, but Nell stopped him.

  “No,” she said, blinking. “I’m okay. Spend as much time looking as you’d like. These aren’t sad tears. Well, maybe a little. I’m relieved. I thought you just wanted to put this all behind us. That there was something wrong with me for wanting to remember. It’s good to see that you want to, too.”

  “Of course I want to remember.” The words came out terse, and he looked away for a second.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Josh exhaled, loud and long. “This didn’t just happen to you, you know,” he said. “I’ve been here the whole time. Maybe I’ve handled it differently than you have, but . . .” He set his jaw, as if fighting back tears. “She was my daughter, too.”

  Nell bent down and sat next to him on the floor. She put a hand on his back as his shoulders shook. The last, and only, time she’d seen him shed tears before this was at the hospital, after the nurse took their daughter’s body out of the room, and away from them forever. Josh had shuddered and put his face in his hands. He’d been silent as the tears pooled in his palms and spilled onto the floor. The only sound Nell recalled hearing was the wail, muffled through the walls, of other people’s babies in other rooms.

  Nell realized now just how much she’d been clinging to the kernel of grief inside her, protecting it as if it belonged to her and her alone. Nell had been the one who carried their daughter. She’d felt her baby’s fluttering. Every night of her pregnancy, she’d fallen asleep with her arms cradled over her belly. She’d even been the only one to hold their daughter in the few minutes she was alive. It wasn’t until her little body began to go cold that Nell handed the baby to Josh. She could see now that she’d been possessive in her pain. It was how she’d felt justified in forging ahead with fertility treatments while keeping the cost a secret.

  But what would it cost to share some of her pain? To feel it together with Josh instead of letting it drive them apart? It would cost her nothing. Nothing except opening herself up wide and letting go a little.

  Nell looked at her husband. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Josh furrowed his brow. “I’ve told you a hundred times. There’s nothing you could have done to save her. You heard the doctors.”

  “No, not that.” Nell scooted closer to her husband, so that their legs were touching on the carpet. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to hold her until she was gone. I wish you could have.”

  Josh’s lips formed a straight line, as if he were weighing what to say. “I wish that, too,” he said. “But there’s no way you could have known she’d go so quickly.”

  “I was so unaware of anything else but holding onto her for as long as I could,” Nell said.

  Josh put a hand on her knee. “I know.”

  They sat there like that for several minutes, until Josh’s breathing slowed back to normal and he wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “What made you think about this today?” Nell asked.

  “The investigation into Caroline’s death, I guess. It got me thinking about loss.”

  Nell reached over and picked up a silver envelope. She remembered the day it came in the mail, a few weeks after they came home from the hospital. At first Nell had thought it was a wedding invitation. But inside she had found a thumb drive and a handwritten letter from the photographer. She had mentioned it to Josh, but he’d said he wasn’t ready to see the pictures, so Nell kept them—and the letter—to herself, looking at them often, whenever she felt the need.

  Now, though, she unfolded the letter and leaned against Josh’s shoulder so they could read it together.

  Dear Nell and Josh,

  Enclosed are the photos I took of your beautiful daughter. Thank you for the opportunity to document her life. These pictures are yours to use in whatever way you wish, whenever you feel ready.

  I know the pain you are going through because I also lost a baby, two years ago. A boy, Nathan Andrew, stillborn at 38 weeks. I didn’t tell you this at the hospital because I didn’t want to interfere in any way with your precious few moments with your baby.

  When I got the call about coming to the
hospital to take these pictures, I wasn’t sure if I should do it. I had made some progress in my own healing, and I worried about the emotions the experience would bring up for me. But, deep down, I knew I didn’t have a choice. I had to do it. A photographer came and took pictures after I delivered Nathan, and I look at my favorite picture of him every single day. I knew I had to make the same thing possible for you.

  Dana B.

  The first time Nell read the letter, Nell had looked up Dana B.’s photography website and bookmarked it. The pictures posted there were very different from the ones she’d sent to Nell and Josh. There were senior portraits of smiling teenagers, lifestyle shots of families playing at the beach and walking on wooded trails. There were baby portraits, too, so many of them. Bald, plump babies. Babies with full heads of hair. Black babies and white babies. Crawling and walking and sleeping babies. But nowhere on Dana B.’s site were there pictures of any babies as small as Baby Girl Parker. Nor nearly as beautiful.

  Josh opened the envelope wider and looked inside. “There aren’t any photos in here.”

  “She sent them on a thumb drive, so I loaded them onto my computer. I’ve never had prints made because . . . Well, because I knew you hadn’t seen them and it seemed wrong to, like, force you to look at them. I didn’t want to print them out only to stick them in a drawer somewhere. So I just kept them on there.”

  “Maybe I needed to be forced.” He got up and left the room. Nell didn’t know whether she should follow him. Maybe he was upset and just needed a moment to himself.

  He came back a few seconds later, though, holding Nell’s laptop. He settled back down on the floor, cross-legged next to Nell, and opened it.

  Nell studied his face. “You sure?” she asked. But she already knew the answer from the way he’d set his jaw and fixed his eyes on the screen. Still, she waited for his nod before she leaned over and clicked open the folder that contained the pictures.

  Josh looked through the pictures slowly. At first, he sat silent. Then the memories started to flow out of him.