15. Louella
— ? —
Louella
The gallery smelled like possibility and expensive wine.
Sylvie had outdone herself, track lighting angled to catch every brushstroke, walls painted that perfect shade of white that made colors sing, and in the center of the main room, mounted on its own dedicated wall, the piece that had almost killed me to create.
Empty Cradle was six feet tall and eight feet wide.
Abstract, technically, all violent reds and grieving blues and a hollow space at the center that seemed to pull light into itself.
I’d painted it in three days of sleepless fury after the second miscarriage, hidden it in my studio, and hadn’t looked at it again until Sylvie demanded to see everything I’d made in the past five years.
“This one,” she’d said, her voice hushed. “This is the anchor. Everything else builds around it.”
Now it hung in public, my pain on display for strangers to interpret. The vulnerability should have been unbearable. Instead, it felt like finally being able to breathe.
“Louella.” Camille caught up to me, champagne in hand. “Have you seen the crowd? There’s a line out the door.”
“Is that normal?”
“For a first show in five years from an artist Sylvie’s been championing? It’s better than normal.” She squeezed my arm. “You did it. You actually did it.”
Dana was already working the room, her lawyer’s instincts translating seamlessly into art-world networking. She’d helped me structure the pricing, the contracts, the protective clauses that ensured no one could reproduce my work without permission. My sister, always looking out for me.
I saw old friends from art school, colleagues I’d lost touch with during the Lauder years, critics whose names I recognized from reviews I’d read obsessively in another life. They moved through the space, pausing in front of each piece, their expressions shifting as they absorbed what I’d made.
Loss. Rage. Rebirth. The progression was intentional, darker work near the entrance, gradually lightening as viewers moved through the gallery, until they reached the final room where the newest pieces hung.
Paintings made in the beach house, with salt air and solitude and the first stirrings of hope.
I was explaining the technique on one of the middle pieces to a collector when I felt it, that prickle at the back of my neck that said someone was watching.
Hector stood near the entrance, half-hidden by the crowd, his eyes fixed on Empty Cradle.
He looked different. Lighter, somehow. The gauntness from the wedding had eased, and he’d dressed simply, dark jeans, white shirt, no tie. Like a man who’d stopped trying to impress and started trying to be present.
I didn’t go to him. Didn’t wave or acknowledge. But I didn’t ask him to leave, either.
The crowd shifted, and my stomach dropped.
Genevieve Lauder entered the gallery like she owned it. Pearls gleaming, hair immaculate, her expression fixed in that pleasant mask that had always made my skin crawl. And beside her, clutching her arm like a child seeking protection, Elizabeth.
“Courage,” Camille murmured. “She can’t do anything here.”
But Elizabeth could. Elizabeth always could.
I watched them move through the space, Genevieve pausing occasionally to examine a piece with exaggerated interest, Elizabeth trailing behind in a dress that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
They were building toward a scene. I could see it in the tension of Elizabeth’s shoulders, the calculated path they were taking.
They reached Empty Cradle and stopped.
“How morbid,” Elizabeth said, loudly enough to carry. “Though I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. The artist has always been a bit unstable.”
The conversations around us faltered. Heads turned.
“Really, Genevieve.” Elizabeth’s voice climbed higher, playing to the audience. “I’m concerned. When I heard she was expecting, I thought, well, someone should be watching out for that child. This level of obsession with loss, with grief… it hardly suggests a stable mind. A fit mother.”
Silence. Absolute, breathless silence.
Hector moved toward us, the fury building in his expression, and I watched him prepare to intervene.
I raised my hand.
He stopped.
“I’ve got this,” I said quietly.
Then I turned to face Elizabeth, and I smiled.
“The work of an unstable mind,” I repeated. “That’s your professional assessment?”
“It’s the assessment of anyone with eyes.” She gestured at the painting. “Look at this. All this darkness, all this pain. What kind of person creates a thing like this?”
“Someone who survived.” I kept my voice calm, even pleasant. “Someone who lost three babies and had to find a way to live with that loss. Someone who was abandoned by her husband, betrayed by his family, and isolated from everyone who might have helped her heal.”
Elizabeth’s composure wavered. “I don’t know what you’re…”
“You forged a pregnancy to steal my husband.” Each word landed like a slap.
“You did his mother’s dirty work, and she let you, because you were both happy to see me gone.
You showed up at a public event to call me an unfit mother while wearing a dress chosen specifically to provoke. And now you’re insulting my art.”
I stepped closer, letting her see exactly how unafraid I was.
“This is what pain looks like when you alchemize it into beauty. What have you ever made besides lies?”
Someone in the crowd laughed, quickly stifled, but the sound rippled outward, shifting the energy in the room.
“How dare you.” Elizabeth’s face was reddening. “How dare you speak to me like…”
“Like what? Like someone who knows exactly what you are?” I tilted my head.
“The forged clinic documents. The fabricated blood tests. The staged photographs while my husband was drugged. Did you think we wouldn’t find out?
Did you think a private investigator wouldn’t be able to trace every lie you told? ”
“That’s… you can’t prove…”
“We have proof.” Dana appeared at my side, her lawyer’s voice cool and cutting.
“Documented, verified, legally actionable proof. Which is why there will be no further custody threats, no more public accusations, and no additional harassment of my client. Unless you’d prefer to discuss this in court? ”
Elizabeth looked desperately toward Genevieve. But Genevieve had gone pale beneath her powder, her mask finally slipping as she realized how badly she’d miscalculated.
“We should go,” Genevieve said stiffly. “This venue clearly doesn’t meet our standards.”
“Running away?” I asked. “How unexpected.”
“I am not running…”
“Excuse me.” Sylvie’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. She positioned herself beside me, her gallery-owner authority on full display. “I need to make an announcement.”
The room’s attention shifted, Elizabeth’s moment of drama neatly hijacked.
“I’m thrilled to inform everyone that the entire Duval collection has sold.
” Sylvie smiled, the expression somehow both warm and slightly predatory.
“Every piece, including Empty Cradle, which was acquired by an anonymous collector for a record price. Additionally, I’ve invited Louella to headline a solo exhibition next spring, a full retrospective of her work over the past decade. ”
Applause erupted. Genuine, enthusiastic applause from people who had no interest in Lauder family drama and every interest in watching an artist triumph.
Elizabeth’s face crumbled.
“This isn’t over,” she spat at me.
“Actually, it is.” I kept my voice pleasant, almost sympathetic. “You tried to destroy me. You failed. And now everyone in this room knows exactly what kind of person you are. So yes, Elizabeth, this is very much over.”
Genevieve seized Elizabeth’s arm, steering her toward the exit. They were almost to the door when Genevieve turned back, fixing me with a look of pure venom.
“You think you’ve won,” she said. “You haven’t. My family has survived worse than you.”
I smiled.
“Yes. You are.”
Three words. A confirmation of her departure that doubled as a second meaning entirely, an acknowledgment that she was, in fact, worse than anything I’d faced. Worse than the losses, worse than the grief, worse than all the darkness I’d poured into my paintings.
She understood. I saw the moment it landed, the flash of recognition that she’d been dismissed and diminished in the same breath.
Then she was gone, and the gallery erupted into conversation, and Camille was hugging me while Dana laughed and Sylvie poured champagne for everyone within reach.
Across the room, Hector caught my eye.
He didn’t approach. Didn’t try to claim any part of this victory. He just nodded, a small acknowledgment, a recognition of a thing I’d done entirely on my own.
I nodded back.
Then I turned to accept congratulations from a critic I’d admired for years, and let myself feel, for the first time in longer than I could remember, like I might actually be enough.