The Story She Left Behind

Chapter 57 Clara

All night emotion and art moved through me. At sunrise I made my way downstairs, where Charlie stood in front of me in the grand hallway. With little sleep, I knew the crash would come, yet for now I wanted tea.

“There you are,” Charlie said, rubbing at his face, the night still resting on him.

“Here I am,” I said. “Looking for tea.” I struggled between throwing my arms around him and wondering if it was all a mirage: me and him, love, and all that came in its wake.

“Clara.” Just my name on his tongue, the turn of his chin and the softness of his gaze, and I wanted to weep with exhaustion and surrender.

He held out his hands and I set mine in his and he held fast. “I’m so lost,” I said. “How could our parents have done this to us?”

“To us? Maybe we aren’t the victims here, Clara. Maybe we are the ones who have the freedom to become what and who we are, as they struggled a generation before us to do the same.”

“That’s a generous summation,” I said, softening.

“Come with me,” he said. He motioned for me to follow him.

We entered the drawing room and there, in the dusty dawn light, my mother and dad were asleep together, curled on the couch, his arm around her as she rested against him.

Charlie spoke in a whisper. “They waited up all night, hoping you’d come down.”

Charlie’s voice stirred Dad, and he sat up. “Clara.”

“Dad.”

Mother sat up, too. She looked around as if trying to remember where she was, and then she stood and walked to me, and silently stood in front of me. “Clara, I am here.”

“I don’t know what to do now,” I told her. “All night I’ve painted while struggling between leaving and staying.”

Mother tucked her chin as if bowing her head for prayer. “I can’t ask you to stay, but I would like it if you would.” She lifted her head now.

“Ladybug,” Dad said softly, walking over to join us, “your mother is right about what would have happened twenty-five years ago. I could have tried to prevent it, but with her history, I might not have been able to. We will never know. She was only trying to protect you. For that can you forgive her?”

I sought for an answer inside, searched but was interrupted by “Mama,” Wynnie’s voice from the doorway, and we all turned. “This is so… pretty.”

She was holding a square canvas with the illustration I’d stayed up all night painting. It was the scene of a sunlit path on Esthwaite Water, a shadow on the moon, and a young girl standing near the lake with her face to the sky and light spilling upon her.

Mother walked toward Wynnie and took the illustration from her hands, tears spilling down her face. “This is the sky splitting open,” she said, her voice wavering.