Page 24 of Loss and Damages
“He eventually got over it and admitted he wouldn’t have wanted any of it anyway. He couldn’t separate what she gave me from how much she loved him, but he knew she did. I can hold something,” she offers, reaching out her hands.
I pass her the bouquet of flowers. I don’t know what they are, I’d trusted the florist to put together something a woman would like, but Jemma doesn’t seem impressed, giving them a cursory glance before opening the storm door and allowing me inside.
“Leo didn’t have a will,” I say, stepping inside the cottage. I don’t believe she was angling for word if he left her anything, and she quirks her lips, confirming my suspicions.
“I wouldn’t think so. He was too young to think about dying. What will happen to his estate?”
“Our attorney’s handling it. Though the Milanos are wealthy, he didn’t have much. He didn’t work for the company and wasn’t earning a paycheck. Our mother supported him, and he had a small trust fund from our grandfather on our father’s side. His assets will probably go to our mother. They were close and no one will contest her claim.”
Holding the wine bottles, I look around her cottage. The living room is small, a coffee table positioned in front of a worn-out couch, an array of art magazines littering the scarred top. A medium-sized TV is sitting on a squat entertainment center, but Jemma seems to be the type of person who would prefer to daydream or read. Above a recliner that matches the couch, a huge painting hangs on the wall, a field of flowers dancing in the breeze on a sunny day. From here, I can’t see the name of the artist who painted the enormous canvas, but the sheer size and the hundreds of flowers must have taken him or her a very long time to complete.
“That’s a pretty painting. A local?”
She pauses and flicks her gaze to it. “Yes. It’s the field behind the cottage. I...had it commissioned.”
“It’s well done.”
She smiles, her eyes softening as she looks at it again. “It is.”
There’s a quiet that hangs over us, almost as if we’d decided to give Leo a moment of silence.
I clear my throat. “I didn’t know what you’d be cooking, if anything,” I tack on, remembering my pizza delivery speculation.
“I’m frying steaks. I hope that’s okay. Besides a girl that helps me part-time, I run the gallery alone and I didn’t have time to run into town.”
“That’s fine. I don’t mean to be an inconvenience.”
She laughs. “You don’t give a crap if you inconvenience anyone, as long as you get what you want. I’m not stupid, Mr.— I mean, Dominic. I may not have an MBA, but I know how you do business.”
I set the bottles on a breakfast bar that separates the kitchen from the living room. She doesn’t have a table, and I pull out a stool and sit at the counter to watch her float around the room. Settling on the thin cushion, I rest my elbows on the white and grey granite. “That’s business, Jemma. I run my personal life a bit differently.”
She tilts her head, and she looks sweet, the flowers in her hands, her low ponytail swishing over her breast. This is where Leo would be, right now, if he were alive, and I would have been none the wiser.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t know how to prove it to you.”
“You being here proves it just fine. Last night could have been the end of it, but you had to push. I still don’t understand what you think tonight is going to do. It’s hard enough trying to move on without you badgering me.”
I need all my strength not to rear back in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was dragging you down.”
She slides a clear glass pitcher out of a cabinet and places it in the large sink. She’s silent as water streams into the pitcher and doesn’t speak as she arranges the flowers. The bouquet looks like a photo in a country magazine, and like her bare feet, I find the simplicity pleasing. She sets it aside on the breakfast bar and pokes at a flower. “I see him, in your face. It’s not easy talking to you.”
“We look nothing alike. He took after our mother. I favor my father’s side of the family.”
Impatiently, she shakes her head. “Were you deliberately looking for differences? So you felt better about not getting along? He’s there, in your eyes and your jaw. Not your lips, but your smile.”
“I haven’t—”
“Not a happy smile, a sad one. It’s the same on your mouth as it was on his. You were brothers. There’s more alike than different, you just don’t want to see it. I do, and it hurts.”
She looks from the bouquet to me, tears sparkling in her eyes.
“Jemma, I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s fine. If you want to open the red, I’ll get wineglasses and my corkscrew.”
“All right.”
