Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
It was the third week of January, and three weeks after Reese’s last radiation treatment.
At least, “last” was what they privately prayed for.
Oriana and Reese were in the living room of their house, watching snow flutter down outside as their grandson Benny played with Legos on the floor.
Oriana sipped a glass of wine while Reese drank tea and gave Benny advice on where to put which Lego next.
There was a little more color in Reese’s cheeks, Oriana knew, and his appetite had come back a little bit, enough that he’d requested lasagna last night and eaten one and a half pieces.
But Oriana also knew that she couldn’t get her hopes up, not yet.
The doctors said they wouldn’t know if the cancer was fully gone for a while. More tests had to be done.
When their daughter Alexa came to pick up their grandson Benny later that evening, Oriana checked her phone for the first time in hours.
It was one of her more prominent buyers, a Manhattanite named Malcolm who’d been sniffing around for a Larry Calvin Johannes original.
She hadn’t heard from him since before Christmas and had assumed all this talk about Larry’s missing wife had called him off.
She realized she’d been wrong about that.
“Everyone’s talking about him,” Malcolm said, excitement in his voice. “My friends who already have his paintings tease me endlessly. They can’t believe I haven’t joined their ranks.”
Oriana pressed her forehead against the chill of the kitchen window. She wanted to ask Malcolm about his wife. Doesn’t the fact that he might have murdered someone turn you off? Doesn’t the fact that she’s “missing” indicate something’s off?
But Malcolm answered her questions without first hearing them.
“It’s strange that this Larry fellow almost died in anonymity.
He’s a killer painter, for one. And he might be a killer!
I mean, it’s just a fascinating story when you look at it closely.
It really captivates us art buyers. It’s the kind of story you want to tell your friends when they come by to look at your art.
And—as I said—it’s the kind of story my friends are using to make me endlessly envious of their collections!
Oriana, I need a Larry Calvin Johannes original! ”
Oriana wanted to sigh, but bit her tongue to keep it in. “Malcolm, I have a very limited supply at this point.”
“Tell him to paint more,” Malcolm barked. “His wife is already gone. He must have hours and hours of time to commit.”
Malcolm hung up, leaving Oriana rolling her eyes. Resentment boiled in her stomach. Reese entered the kitchen to refill his tea and caught her expression before she could change it. “What’s up?”
“Turns out they love that he’s a killer,” Oriana said. “It ups his mystique.”
“He might not be a killer,” Reese pointed out.
“Sure. But I think it would be worse for my career if I proved she was alive,” Oriana said, rubbing her forehead and reaching for the bottle of wine on the counter.
“What if he’s just a lonely old man?” Reese asked hesitantly.
Oriana had thought about this. “Isabella brought the story to the station for a reason,” she said tentatively. “There’s certainly something strange about his past.”
“There’s something strange about everyone’s past,” Reese said. “I just hope we aren’t tarnishing a lonely old man’s name. Have you talked to him?”
Truth be told, Oriana hadn’t spoken to Larry at all since Reese’s radiation had begun.
She’d wanted to distance herself from the “lonely” yet slightly scary old man.
But now that people like Malcolm were banging on her door for more original paintings (with many more on the way, she was sure), she guessed she’d have to speak to Larry soon.
Unless she continued to speak to him via her assistant, Kendra? Wasn’t that what Kendra was for?
What if Oriana was getting too old for this? What if she was too tired?
Reese put his hands on Oriana’s shoulders and rubbed through the strained muscles.
He kissed the back of her neck. With this rush of tenderness, Oriana felt overcome.
The past few months had been all-encompassing.
Only recently had she begun to sleep all through the night.
Of course, Reese’s test results hung in the horizon.
But right now, they could breathe again.
“Remember when you said you wanted to go back out to Colorado to investigate?” Reese asked.
Oriana half remembered saying it at Thanksgiving, when Reese had barely been able to walk. “Sure,” she said. “But it isn’t that important.”
Reese laughed gently. “I’m feeling better and better. More than that, I’m feeling cooped up.”
Oriana twisted her neck to look at him. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Remember that hot tub on the balcony?” Reese said wistfully. “Remember those mountains, towering over us? I want to see them again.”
He didn’t add what Oriana was sure he was thinking: that he was terrified the test results wouldn’t come back clear, that he was terrified he wouldn’t live beyond this year.
What he wanted was clear. He wanted to see things. He wanted to make memories with Oriana.
It was enough to overwhelm Oriana all over again. But rather than accuse him of not thinking he would live through the year or of giving up, she cleared her throat and said, “We have to talk to your doctor before we make any plans.”
Reese saluted her playfully. “I’ll make an appointment for later this week.”
At the beginning of February, Oriana and Reese boarded a tiny plane at Martha’s Vineyard Airport and settled into first class. Reese looked downright boisterous, laughing along with the flight attendants and telling them about their big trip to the mountains.
“My wife is a hotshot art dealer,” he explained. “She lets me come around the world with her. Aren’t I lucky?”
The flight attendants beamed at Oriana. It was clear they respected her for having such a kind and open-hearted husband.
Oriana smiled nervously back at them. She was terrified that something would go wrong in the air, in the mountains, wherever.
She had half a mind to take Reese off the plane and drive him back home this minute.
But his doctor had cleared him—both when Reese had asked him in the office and when Oriana had called him later to double-check.
That, and the flight attendants were already closing the doors, locking them in tight for a safe journey.
The flight from Martha’s Vineyard to Boston and the subsequent flight from Boston to Denver were uneventful, with very little turbulence and a lot of laughter between Oriana and Reese.
Leave it to Reese to draw me out of my shell, she thought, giggling so hard that her wine almost shot out of her nose.
At Denver Airport, they collected a rental SUV and headed into the mountains.
Oriana drove, glancing every once in a while at Reese, who took countless photographs as they went deeper into the snowy mountains.
Everything had changed since their trip in October.
The trees were spindly, and there were piles upon piles of white. It was magical, quiet. Spooky.
They stayed in the same hotel in Nederland, where the same woman checked them in and handed them their keys.
“You were here for him,” the woman said as she set their luggage on a luggage cart. “Larry Calvin Johannes.”
Oriana nodded, wincing. She searched the woman’s face for clues, then dared to ask, “Do you think he did what they say he did?”
The woman shrugged and put her hands on her hips.
“There are all kinds of secrets in these mountains. It’s impossible to say what people hide from the world up here.
My mother never liked Larry, but I don’t think it was because he was violent toward her.
He was arrogant. He was always sure he was meant for something great.
I guess he was right. People like you sniffed him out and made him a big name! ”
Upstairs, Reese told Oriana to shake off what the woman downstairs had said. “Let’s get in the hot tub and relax till dinner,” he ordered, turning on the bubbles and turning up the temp.
Oriana slipped into the water and held Reese’s hand, willing herself not to ask him if he felt all right, if he was too tired.
He’d specifically asked his radiation oncologist about every potential phase of their trip, including whether he could use a hot tub, and his radiation oncologist had given him the a-okay.
They studied one another. It felt as though they’d just woken up from a dream, or a nightmare. It was like they’d gone to sleep in October and woken up in February.
“Before you ask,” Reese said with a funny smile, “I feel fine. I feel great, actually.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But you wanted to.”
Oriana laughed and cozied up beside him. Her eyes were on the mountains overhead, where the sunset oozed through the spindly trees.
For a little while, they didn’t speak. Oriana ached to know what Reese was thinking about. Her own thoughts of Larry felt marginal by comparison. A part of her didn’t care if she cut Larry out of her life for good. Let some other art dealer manage him.
“One thing keeps coming to my mind about this whole thing,” Reese said finally.
There was a quaver in his voice that alarmed her.
“I just don’t want to be a burden. On you.
On our family. On our kids. I want everyone to keep living as well and as wildly as they can, regardless of my situation. ” His eyes refused to look down at her.
In the distance was the sound of a squawking bird. Oriana imagined it was enormous, the size of a small dinosaur.
“You could never be a burden to me,” she whispered to him, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, his cheek, his lips. “You are my love and my life. Everything else is extra.”
That night, rather than go out to a restaurant, they ordered dinner from a steakhouse and ate in their lush, beautiful bed. They watched films, ate till they were stuffed, and laughed about stories they hadn’t told in years. Oriana felt as though they were young again.
Just before she drifted off to sleep, she wondered if Henrietta had ever felt this way about Larry, if they’d ever celebrated their love with a big steak and stayed up too late.