Page 131 of The Girl You Left Behind
I am an old woman now, so it may not happen in my lifetime, but I believe that one day a whole series of paintings will emerge with unknown provenance, beautiful and strange, their colors unexpected and rich. They will feature a red-haired woman in the shade of a palm tree, or perhaps gazing out into a yellow sun, her face a little older, that hair perhaps streaked with gray, but her smile wide and her eyes full of love.
Liv looks up at the portrait opposite her bed, and the young Sophie gazes back at her, washed with the pale gold of the lamplight. She reads the letter a second time, studying the words, the spaces between them. She thinks back to Édith Béthune’s gaze: steady and knowing. And then she reads it again.
“Hey.” Paul rolls over sleepily toward her. He reaches out an arm and pulls her to him. His skin is warm, his breath sweet. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
Liv puts the letter down and burrows under the duvet until she is facing him.
“Paul.”
“Liv.”
She smiles. She smiles every time she looks at him. And she takes a little breath. “You know how good you are at finding stuff....”
