Chapter Ten #3
I lean forward. “I’m fuckin’ with you.” I laugh, and she slaps my arm. “It says, ‘When Dani launched Promesa, we had a celebratory drink at my house. I have never been that drunk in my life. It was the first time I’d ever felt my age.’”
Dani giggles quietly, the sound somehow both innocent and sinister.
“She sang all the parts of ‘Ladies’ Night’ by herself without taking a breath, and I believe I danced on my table.
It was the happiest I’d seen her in a long time.
I don’t think she remembers saying this to me, but she said, ‘It’s so nice to wake up every morning and actually be happy about it. ’ That always stays with me.”
Quiet falls over the room.
She didn’t want to live anymore. I mean, it doesn’t explicitly say she wanted to kill herself, but the message is clear. There was a time when she would’ve gladly accepted death. I hate that.
Dani’s hands tremble by her sides. She reaches up and slips the card from my fingers.
I track the barrage of emotions that fall over her with every reread. “Let me just say this and then we can move on like I know you want to.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Her eyes shoot up to mine, piercing my chest. “Me too.”
Good. Until my dying day, I’ll always make sure that’s the case. That, I can promise.
Something catches Dani’s attention, and she gently moves me from her path. She bends over the linked hands statue on Tanya’s desk and pulls a piece of paper from one of the palms. Unfolding it, she reads the words and snorts.
“Did you see the new exhibition they have running right now?”
“Uh, no?” I respond.
She holds the paper out to me. It’s another flyer for the BMA, but this one is advertising their new installation: Art Imitates Life.
“I don’t know if I can handle any more emotions today, but lead the way,” I say.
It takes us a minute to reach Art Imitates Life as we become enthralled in other exhibitions along the way.
When I first met Tanya, she would bring me here often, letting me appreciate the many artists displayed there, but it was discovering how she curated each exhibition that inspired me to open Spring House.
Tanya didn’t make art, but she was an artist all the same.
I can’t walk by and not absorb her talent one last time.
Dani stops suddenly, making me crash into her back. I understand why the moment I register what I’m seeing.
Tanya is in the Art Imitates Life collection. There are screens across the installation showing photos and videos of her throughout her life.
The videos are clearly home movies, most of them from her time with George. Visually they’re wonderful on their own, but there are headphones stationed at each screen so you can also hear the audio.
Dani approaches the first screen, cautiously grabbing the headphones and submerging herself into Tanya’s past.
I move onto the next one, diving in with both feet.
“George is actually one of the most frustrating men I’ve ever met,” Tanya says with authority.
From behind the camera, George says, “Tell them you love me, baby.”
She hides her smile behind her hand. “I’ll do no such thing.”
The camera shifts and George appears on screen, wrapping Tanya up in his arms and lifting her off the ground as she screams in false panic.
“George Basil Holden, you put me down!” she demands.
His boisterous laugh echoes across their backyard as he spins her one more time before putting her down.
He keeps his hand planted around her waist and she leans into his touch.
“Tell the people why you’re pretending to be mad at me,” he says, adoration in his eyes.
She scoffs and turns to the camera. “This man here put a baby in me and that was not part of the plan.”
He throws his head back with laughter. “But are you happy?”
Her hand grazes her stomach, settling protectively over it. Her smile beams up at him. “Profusely.”
I snatch the headphones off of my ears. Tanya was pregnant? Did she have a child we didn’t know about? Endless questions circle me like sharks. I look over to Dani, who seems to be engulfed in a happy vision of Tanya.
The light hits the plaque under the screen I just watched, catching my attention. It reads, “If I’d known then what I know now, would it have changed anything?”
I don’t know what to make of this. Dani removes her headphones and walks over to me. She looks so peaceful that I hesitate to hand her this pair, but Tanya wanted us to see everything.
I grab Dani’s hand and squeeze before placing the headphones in her palm and moving on to the next video.
This time I read the plaque first and it says “Lorraine.”
A young Tanya sits in front of a camera.
Her eyes are puffy with tears, the only indication that something is wrong despite her perfectly styled hair, makeup, and blouse.
“George loves his videos, so I thought I’d try this.
I’ve tried to be strong. I really have. But I keep seeing all the blood.
The blood that seeped from my body and told us our baby was in danger.
I keep remembering the moment everything went black.
She was so still in my stomach, and I knew right then that she was gone.
” She buries her face in her hands, eventually running her hands up to grip the roots of her hair tightly.
“I know she wasn’t planned, but I wanted her.
Why did you give her to me if you were just gonna snatch her away?
” she asks the empty room, knowing she won’t get an answer.
“Why did you give me the experience of childbirth just so I could hold her lifeless body in my arms? I don’t understand. I will never understand.”
She blows out a harsh breath and picks up a makeup brush. She looks past the camera into a mirror, dabbing under her eyes.
The door behind her opens and a downtrodden George walks in. The two of them make eye contact before Tanya jumps from her seat and rushes to George’s side. They slide to the floor, holding each other.
Fuck. Tanya experienced such tragedy and was somehow able to keep going. Even after losing George too, she held on. Death was a prominent figure in her life; now I know why she went so willingly when it came for her.
Turning to look at Dani, I find her frozen.
She’s staring at her screen with her mouth agape and her hands plastered to her stomach. I rush over and remove the headphones, placing them back on their stand.
I grip the back of Dani’s neck and massage her nape. Slowly, her eyes lower into a long blink, then circle back to me.
“There’s no way Tanya wouldn’t have a relationship with her child and no way she wouldn’t have told me she had one in the first place. Where is the baby, Micah?” Her voice shakes with fear. She knows what’s coming. She knows it in her bones, and I don’t have the power to make it not true.
I take her hands in mine and lead her to the next screen, laying the headphones on for her, but I don’t move to the next screen.
I stand behind Dani and rewatch Tanya’s unraveling, which is even more devastating on mute.
When Tanya and George crumble to the ground, Dani’s legs wobble beneath her.
I catch her and hold on, wishing I could’ve done the same for Tanya.
We stay together through the rest of the exhibition, serving as each other’s anchor.
The rest of the videos are peaceful, with Tanya and George moving from Virginia to Maryland and eventually finding their smiles again.
The videos end with Tanya and George celebrating their anniversary.
I assume home movies died for Tanya when George did.
Tanya’s assistant waits for us by the exit of the gallery.
Her brows are pulled inward and her muscles tighten at her eyes.
She tilts her head to the right as she holds out a flash drive for me to take.
We exchange no words once the flash drive is in my hands.
She disappears into the crowd as if she were never there.
Remembering Tanya’s computer in her office and not wanting to wait any longer than necessary to see what this device holds, we rush back.
“I can’t believe Tanya was almost a mother,” I murmur as I connect the device to her computer.
“She was a mother,” Dani says. “Whether she had the opportunity to raise her daughter or not, she was a mother.”
She’s one hundred percent right.
Tanya’s face appears on the screen. The tendrils of illness showcase themselves in the heaviness of her eyelids and the dullness of her skin.
“Hello, my loves. Did you enjoy the exhibition? God, I haven’t recorded a video of myself in decades. Wasn’t George handsome? I think he would’ve enjoyed his movies being on display for everyone. He always wanted to be a movie director, so I transformed our life into his art.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and for a moment I forget that this isn’t a live feed, and I can’t rush to her to make sure she’s okay.
Her eyes pop open and she continues. “Yes, I had a daughter. George and I never planned on kids, but the moment we found out about her, we were ecstatic. Her name was Lorraine.”
I had wondered if Dani noticed the plaque under Tanya’s video.
If she realized that Tanya’s late child’s name was the same as her middle name.
I’m not sure if the death grip she has on the armrest of her chair means she did or didn’t.
I place my hand over hers, offering the only support I know how.
She doesn’t connect her hand with mine, but she doesn’t move it either, and that’s something.
“And after we lost her, I told George I didn’t want to go through that ever again.
When George passed, I regretted that choice.
I regretted not trying again to have a piece of George that would outlive me.
But then, I met you, Danielle Lorraine Jenkins.
And I knew that was George telling me to let go of that pain.
I know these tasks may seem silly, but I’m hoping they’ll help you let go of your pain before it’s too late. ”
The abrupt end to the video makes Dani jump in her seat, ripping her hand from underneath mine. “Wait, wait. Go back,” Dani asks, eyes glued to the screen.
I grab the mouse and rewind until she tells me to stop. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
She leans forward from her chair until her face is practically smashed against the screen. “Right there. Don’t you see it? One of the pictures from her wall is missing.”
I lean past her, trying to see what she sees. In the video, Tanya is sitting at her desk in this very room. The pictures we took off the wall are lined up perfectly behind her.
“Oh, shit,” I say when realization hits me.
When we came in here, one of the rows on the wall had one less picture than the others. I think we both assumed she just didn’t have another to fill the space, but in this video, all the rows are even.
So, where’s the other photo?
We tear through the remnants of Tanya’s office, looking for anything we missed the first time around.
A framed photo of Tanya on her bookshelf catches my eye.
It’s from Time magazine article about her, but it stands out because it doesn’t match the aesthetic of the rest of her shelf.
The other frames are gold and elegant. This one is wooden and looks worn.
Tanya wouldn’t disrupt her design flow for no reason, so without hesitation I flip the frame over and open it.
Another photo falls from the frame. It lands right side up by my feet. Dani shuffles to stand across from me, but neither of us makes a move to grab the picture. I don’t recognize the woman we’re looking at, but it’s clear that Dani does. Her fingers fly up to her mouth as she takes it in.
“You know her?” I ask.
She looks up at me. “Yeah. That’s Daria Drayton. She’s a fashion designer I’ve collaborated with. I just didn’t know Tanya knew her.”
“Well, it looks like she’s the key to our next clue. Wanna do the honors?” I gesture to the photo, and she smiles before picking it up.
Instead of an anecdote about Daria on the back, there’s only a one-line note, similar to the one Mr. Townsend gave us that led to the BMA, and an address.
In California.