Page 76 of The Chase
“I’m sure there’s a good explanation.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Art was his life.”
And at times it had felt like he’d loved art more than me.
“Apparently, I’m quite the tea maker,” he said. “Here you go.”
“I’ll never breathe again.” I buried my face deeper.
“Please, sit up and take this mug out of my hands before I get third-degree burns.”
I turned and pushed myself up and rested back against the headboard. “You made me a cup of tea?” I took it from him.
“Why do you Brits call it a cup when it’s a mug?”
“Don’t know.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve.
“Because most of you are bat-shit crazy, that’s why.” He reached for the box of tissues on the side table and handed it to me. “Anyone eating Marmite needs their head examined.”
“I like Marmite.”
“I rest my case.”
I giggled but it morphed into a moan of despair. “He must have sold them and hung fakes in their place. Maybe he did it to defraud the insurance company? The art world? Surely he’d have considered they could have turned up?”
“Maybe he needed the money?”
“No, our estate was fine.” I brought my knees up and rested my mug on them.
“What was his reaction? When he realizedSt. Joanwas destroyed?”
“Devastation.” My thoughts carried me back to that fire, the way he’d seemed so lost in thought, so dazed, shock stunning him into silence for the days and weeks that followed.
I’d also lost some part of my dad that night.
“It’s not like he ever painted,” I said. “He loved art but didn’t have a talent for it himself. Perhaps if he had I’d have given more thought to those accusations.”
“Do you paint?” he asked.
“No, you?”
He shook his head. “Dabble in watercolors sometimes, but nothing worthy of anyone seeing them.” He winked. “A fox or two.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“How old were you?”
“When the fire happened?”
He gave a nod.
“Ten. Can’t believe this is happening now.”
“Where was your mom?”
“She died when I was two.”
“I’m sorry.”
