Chapter 22
Day three at Renée's.
The guest room has a window over a small back garden.
Chad has been watering the dahlias. The sheets smell like Renée's laundry detergent.
There is a photograph on the bureau of Marguerite at thirty in a garden I have never seen, head tilted, laughing at something off-camera. Renée put it there on purpose.
I have been looking at it every morning.
I’m looking at it now.
I don’t cry.
I haven’t cried once since I walked out of the apartment. My chest is too big and too low for crying. It feels like the weather. I have tried to force the tears out — sit there until you do — but the tears don't come.
Downstairs, the coffee grinder is going.
I can hear Renée's voice underneath it, talking to Chad about something I’m not meant to overhear. Chad is saying yeah like how men agree when their wife is briefing them on the day's plan and it does not involve setting their cousin off.
I get up and go down.
Renée has made breakfast.
I don’t want it. She has made it anyway. There is toast. There is a small plate of cut fruit. There is a coffee in the mug she gave me for Christmas two years ago because she said I'd lose any mug she gave me that did not have my name on it. The mug has my name on it.
"Eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat the toast."
"Renée."
"Half a piece."
I eat half a piece.
Chad is on the couch in the next room with a paperback open against his knee. He does not look over. He has been doing this since I came.
Renée sits down across from me with her own coffee.
"Suz."
"Don't."
"I'm not asking about him."
"Okay."
"I'm asking what you are going to do today."
"Renée."
"Anything. Any small thing. You can paint. You can take a walk. You can put on real pants. Any of those would count."
"I have on real pants."
"Those are pajama pants."
"They have a button."
"They have a button on pajama pants."
I almost smile.
She catches the almost.
"Suz, the world is still happening. You can let it keep happening without going back to it. You cannot let it keep happening without you knowing what is in your inbox."
"My inbox?"
"You have not looked at your phone in three days. I have been watching."
"Renée."
"Bring me the laptop. We are going through it together. I will sit beside you. I will scroll. You can make any face you want at the screen."
She does not wait for me to argue.
She gets the laptop.
She sets it on the kitchen table between us and opens my mail. The number next to the inbox is a number I don't want to look at.
She scrolls.
Most of it is noise. Promotions. The photography newsletter I subscribed to in 2022 and have not read once. A reminder from the credit union that my monthly statement is available. A receipt from the pharmacy. A coupon for the kind of frozen dumplings I bought three months ago.
She scrolls.
She stops.
"Suz."
"What."
"This one."
I look.
The sender is a name I don't know — Iris Almeida. The subject line is "Your work — I would love to talk."
"Open it."
I open it.
The email is a paragraph and a half.
Suzanne, I came across your work last week through the studio-night archive at the Old Mission space.
I have been thinking about the lobby drawings since.
I run a small gallery in Oakland. I won't bore you with the pitch in an email.
I'd love to meet whenever you have the time.
Coffee on me. No pressure, no agenda. The number below is good. Reach out when you can. — Iris.
A phone number. Nothing else.
"Suz."
"Yeah."
"This was a week ago."
"I know."
"You were sitting on this for a week and didn't tell me."
"I didn't see it."
"How did you not see it."
"Renée, I don't know."
She is quiet for a beat. "Call her."
"Now?"
"Today. Not now."
"Okay."
"Suz."
"I will. I'll call her this afternoon. I promise."
She closes the laptop and does not push.
She accepts this as progress and goes to the sink and starts on the dishes. I sit at the table with my hand on the closed lid of the laptop and the small unfamiliar feeling of being seen by a person who does not know who Cade Nightingale is.
I call Adrian an hour later.
I sit on the edge of the guest bed, take a breath, and dial.
He picks up on the second ring.
"Suzanne, I'm so glad to hear from you. I was —"
"Adrian, I'm calling to tell you I'm not signing."
He is quiet for one beat. "I see. Is there something I can address?"
"No. It isn't about the offer. The offer was generous.
It was, in fact, the most generous offer I have had in my professional life, which I think you knew when you made it.
I'm not signing because I now know you were never going to be my rep.
You were using me to get to Cade. Playing games with my art for your revenge. "
He is quiet.
The silence is long.
When he speaks, his voice is different. The smoothness is still there. The temperature underneath it has dropped.
"That is not entirely accurate."
"Adrian."
"Suzanne, the work is good. I would have signed you regardless. I — "
"Adrian, don't."
He breathes out. "All right."
"You used me. I'm not interested in the apology version of it. I'm also — and this is the part I called to say — I'm also not interested in being the messenger between you and Cade."
"Suzanne."
"There is history you don't know."
A pause.
"What history?"
"Cade has been carrying something for seven years. I'm not going to tell you what it is. I think you deserve to hear it. I'm not the person who should be telling you. If you want it, you ask him. I think he will tell you if you are willing to hear it."
He does not answer.
"That's all I called to say."
"Suzanne, Cade Nightingale is a despicable man. I don't know what he has told you about my father. I don't know what he has told you about himself. Whatever it is, you should consider the source. You should consider getting out while you can."
"Adrian."
"I mean it kindly."
"You do not."
He is quiet.
"I'm not going to argue about Cade with you. I don't need you to be my rep. I don't need you to be my friend. I need you to ask Cade the question you have been waiting seven years to ask, because the answer is not what you think it is. That is for you. That is not for me. I'm hanging up now."
"Suzanne — "
"Goodbye, Adrian."
I end the call and sit on the edge of the guest bed.
My hand is shaking.
I put the phone face down on the duvet and press my palm flat against the duvet. I breathe in for four and out for four the way Marguerite used to make me breathe when I came in from school crying, and the shaking stops.
The doorbell rings.
I'm back at the kitchen table with Renée when it does.
Chad is on the couch. He looks up. Renée looks up. None of us is expecting anyone.
Renée goes.
I hear her voice go flat the way it only goes for one person on this earth.
I get up and cross to the foyer.
My mother is on the porch.
She is in a cream coat. Her hair is freshly dyed again. Behind her at the bottom of the steps is Darryl. He is leaning against the porch railing in a denim jacket.
"Suzanne."
"How did you find me?"
"You weren't at the apartment. I knew you'd be here. Where else would you go?"
I don't answer.
"Sweetheart, I just need to talk to you for a minute.
Just one minute. The money — Mr. Nightingale's money — it ran dry, baby, you know how it goes.
I had a thing come up I wasn't expecting.
If you could just call him for me. I tried to reach him the other day, and he was not as kind as the first time, he — "
"Stop."
"Suzanne."
"You go to him yourself."
"He won't take my call, baby."
"Then he is not taking it."
"Suzanne."
I step past Renée and stand in the doorway.
"Leave."
"I just want to talk."
"I have spent fifteen years listening to you talk. I'm done."
She tries again. She mentions Cade, the check, and how grateful she was for his generosity, how she has been telling everyone what a good man my boyfriend is, how she has been bragging to the women at her bridge group.
"The check was a mistake."
"Suzanne — "
"Not the money. The mistake was thinking any amount of money would ever be enough. You were never going to take the check and leave me alone. You were always going to come back."
"That is not — "
"You took the college fund. You took it, and you spent it on him.
" I don't look at Darryl. "You took the years between thirteen and seventeen, and you used them to teach me I was small.
You told me painting was for other people.
You told me my body was a thing men would use.
You told me I was nothing without you and you spent every day proving I was less than nothing with you. That is what you did."
She opens her mouth.
"And the worst thing you did was none of that.
The worst thing you did was leave me with Marguerite for thirteen years and let me believe she was mine.
Then you come back when she is dead and act like the decade you had not been there entitled you to me.
It did not. It did not entitle you to one minute of me. "
Renée steps up beside me.
She does not raise her voice either.
"You should know something."
My mother's eyes go to her.
"Mom told me what she thought of you. Before she died, she told me. I have been holding it for fifteen years because I did not want to hurt you with it, and I'm tired of holding it, and you are at this door, and so I'm going to hand it to you now."
"Renée — "
"She said, 'I'm leaving this child the only thing I have, and I'm leaving it in trust because if I leave it to you, my sister will spend it on a man before the funeral is over.'"
My mother's mouth closes.
Renée does not stop.
"She said 'I have loved my sister my whole life and I'm sorry for what she became, but I'm not sorry I'm not leaving her my daughter.’ And the daughter she meant, Aunt — the daughter she meant was Suzanne. Suzanne was Mom's daughter.”
Darryl moves and starts to step forward.
Chad is in the doorway behind us.
He does not say anything. He is a tall man in his own house, and Darryl sees him.
I look at my mother.
"This is the last time you come to a door I'm behind.
If you call again, if you come here again, if you contact me through anyone, I will pursue every legal option I have to get you out of my life.
I will get a restraining order. I will tell every person who knows you what you did.
I will not be quiet about it the way I have been quiet about it for fifteen years. "
"Suzanne — "
"You are not my mother. Marguerite was."
Her mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
I close the door and lock it.
I stand in the foyer with my hand on the door.
Renée puts an arm around my shoulders.
I don't cry.
I breathe.
I call Iris that evening.
I don't plan what I'm going to say. I dial. She picks up. I say my name. I say I'm returning her email. I say I would love to meet.
She is warm. She is not surprised.
"Anytime next week works. Coffee? What part of the bay are you in?"
"East. I'm staying with my cousin in Berkeley right now."
"Berkeley is easy. How is Thursday."
"Thursday is good."
"11:00 a.m.? There's a place on Solano I love."
"11:00 a.m."
"I'll send you the address. I'm so glad you called, Suzanne."
"Me too."
I end the call.
I sit on the edge of the guest bed and look at the photograph of Marguerite.
I let myself, for the first time in three days, think about him.
I have not let myself all week. I have been keeping the thought of him in the room across the hall the way I used to keep the thought of my mother in the cabinet under the sink — present, contained, not opened. I open it now.
He hasn't come in the three days I've been here.
I'm not going back tomorrow.
I'm going to wait.
I'm going to wait because my mind will recover from this. I'm strong, clear, and I have a meeting with a gallerist on Thursday. A life that can keep being my life without him. My mind is going to be fine.
It is my heart I'm not sure about.
I have not said the word to him. I have not said it to Renée. I have not said it to myself in any full sentence in any room I have stood in this week.
I say it now.
In the dark, in the guest room at my cousin's house, with the photograph of Marguerite on the bureau and the small distant sound of Chad and Renée loading the dishwasher downstairs, I say it.
I love him.
I have for a while.
I don't know when he will come.
I don't know if he will come the right way.
I'm going to wait anyway.