Page 84 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“I’m glad to have provided you with such amusement. And yes, I’m sure. Well, not really. I didn’t think love real. No.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Not true. I suppose I knew it was. But I did not think myself foolish enough to fall prey to it.”
“That’s outright hubris, brother.”
“I see that now. How do you stand it? Survive it?” Pentshire had asked him what to do to ensure the happiness of the woman he loved. And Theo had told him, thought he’d told him true, too. But the advice he’d given Pentshire would not suit Cordelia.
She wanted him to give up the jagged outlines of his very soul. He snorted as he sank into a chair across from his brother. “Not asking much, is she?”
“What is she asking for?”
“She wants to build a school. An art school. And she wants me to help. And she wants me to… be less of a damn gargoyle.”
“Youarea gargoyle. Apt comparison, that.”
“Much thanks, brother,” Theo grumbled. “The thing is I don’t think I am a man of stone, a monster. Not with her. And not always.” The painting in his room, drawn by a child’s hand, his own hand, had not been the bitter musings of a beast. He’d kept his heart a sunny day until… until… “Raph, what did Father write in his letter to you?”
“Ah.” Raph crossed his hands over his abdomen. “You read yours?”
“I did. Zander snuck it for me.”
Raph rolled his eyes. “Naturally he did.”
“Father apologized. Not that an apology solves anything.”
“No. But it can help you shake off the residue.”
“I don’t take your meaning?”
“You understand. When there is a fire, even the things that are left standing are touched. By ash, by a film, a residue that smudges over everything. I felt like that for a long time because I was living in the fire, refusing to come out of it, and admit that the flames weren’t so deadly as they were before. But when I did—when Matilda yanked me out—I could finally see past the remaining smoke and begin to brush the ash off, clean off the residue of the disaster and… move forward. I no longer had to force myself to be Raph-in-the-fire. I could just be… Raph.”
“I’m not in a fire. I swanned along for years not knowing what was happening. Oblivious to the truth while the rest of you beat back with the flames.”
“You were too young.”
“So I’ll do the work now.”
“Do you enjoy it?” Simple words laid like firecrackers at Theo’s feet.
“Enjoy… work?”
Raph nodded.
He enjoyed drawing. He enjoyed imagining the little ridiculous things he gave to the children in the streets. He enjoyed very much the sketches he’d made for Cordelia that had made her crumple into laughter. But whatgoodwere they? Of what use?
Raph stood and rounded his desk. “While you’re sitting there like a statue, let me show you something.” He rummaged in a bottom drawer of his desk and stood back up with a paper in hand.
“Not another paper.” Theo had begun to dread those.
“It’s something you drew ages ago.”
“Does everyone keep those old things?”
“I don’t know about everyone, but you gave this one to me.” He handed it over and settled back into his seat. “And I liked it. Kept it about.”
The paper between Theo’s finger and thumb held a drawing of a pack of bears, each with its own distinct look. They weren’t bears, not really. They were the brothers. And the smallest one Theo, sat right in the middle, protected on all sides by his giant furry counterparts, one with Atlas’s wide shoulders, another with Raph’s broken nose, one slender like Zander, and another tall and calm like Drew.
“I suppose,” Raph said, “We protected you too long. And by the time we told you, we were all in our own ways embittered toward Father’s favorite thing.”
“Art.”
