Chapter 14 #3
I shake my head. “Not really. I didn’t think that was weird until somebody at school pointed it out.
Like I had done something wrong by not remembering them.
Like it was my fault. I was so embarrassed, I went home and I tore through my grandmother’s bungalow, looking for something that proved they existed.
Then my grandmother pulled this box out from her closet, like she had been hiding it away.
Photos from when my mom was a little girl, of my parents on their wedding day.
These tangible images that I could carry in my back pocket so they could get creased and worn down from every time I showed them off.
It felt like proof that they existed. That those moments happened, whether I remembered them or not.
That probably sounds silly, but to a sixth grader, it was very important,” I say.
Ben’s head cocks to the side. “It doesn’t sound silly at all.”
I nod as his words burrow into my chest, healing something I didn’t even know was still aching. “Anyway, that Christmas, my grandmother gave me a 35 mm camera. It’s one of the few things I brought with me when I moved, so maybe that means something.”
I look up and meet his gaze again. His dark eyes have taken on a new facet in this light, like honey held up to the sun.
“Maybe it does,” he says.
I smile.
We wander the first floor, and I lose myself in the art—Sargents and Manets and Botticellis hanging together in a gloriously random collection.
But there’s also the intricately carved crown molding.
The damask wall coverings. The cracked brick floor.
And all of it is accentuated by the smell of the gardenias and freshly turned dirt in the courtyard.
After a while, we find ourselves in a long gallery with light blue wallpaper visible between the landscapes and portraits tightly crowded along each wall. But one in particular catches my eye.
The painting is tall and has a boy at the center with dark hair and eyes.
He’s dressed smartly, though his waistcoat is a bit askew.
His hair looks like it was brushed, but barely, and he’s staring out at us just as a child today might in a photo their parents forced them to take. Begrudging compliance.
I lean forward to read the plaque:
STANDARD BEARER OF THE HARVEST FESTIVAL, 1884
ANTONIO MANCINI (ITALIAN, 1852–1930)
OIL ON CANVAS
“Why does that look like you at twelve years old?” I ask as Ben appears at my side.
Ben hums, a deep, noncommittal sound. “My mom used to say the same thing.”
I blink up at him. “Seriously?”
He nods. “Always said it was her favorite. She used to bring my sister and me here a lot growing up.” He stares at the painting for a minute before catching my surprised expression. “How do you think I knew so much about the museum?”
“I don’t know, I guess I assumed it was a Boston thing. Like how you all know so much about Paul Revere.”
The corner of his mouth tugs up as he turns back to the painting. “My mom’s a middle school art teacher but has her master’s in art history. She always tried to inject some history into everything we did, even if it was just self-portraits out of Popsicle sticks.”
“Does she live nearby?”
“Yeah, she retired a few years ago and moved to Rockport. Just north of the city.”
His voice distracts me so much it’s worrying. It’s rough, like sandpaper on an itch deep in my belly. There are different levels to it, too, slight variations to its depth that trigger different reactions from my pulse.
I let out a deep breath, dislodging the thought as I turn back to face the painting again. “So this is your mom’s favorite. Where’s yours?”
We wind through a maze of hallways and galleries, past a few silent patrons milling about before closing time.
Finally, we end up in a room draped in heavy green damask. There is art hanging on every wall, situated to fit as many frames as possible. Ben stops in front of a huge frame hanging in the center of the wall. It’s empty, so you can see clear through to the green velvet tapestry behind.
“This is your favorite?” I ask.
“At first it was a joke. My mom told us to pick our favorite painting, and when we got back home, she’d help us re-create it.
I was twelve and a dick, so I picked an empty frame.
She didn’t challenge me, though. When we got home, she let me steal some spare wood in my dad’s old workshop to make a frame.
I even stained it and etched in the name there.
” He nods to the plaque displayed at the bottom of the frame that reads REMbrANDT.
“Then she asked me why that was there. When I didn’t have an answer, she made me research it.
So I did. The painting that’s supposed to be here is Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
It’s this incredible scene of a storm about to tear apart a small fishing boat.
Everyone on board is panicking, but Jesus is on deck, completely calm. ”
“Because he knew he could fix it,” I say. “He’s a really good carpenter.”
Ben’s mouth quirks up with another hint of a smile.
“So where’s the painting?” I ask.
“Nobody knows.”
My eyebrows stitch together. “Excuse me?”
“It was stolen in 1990.”
“And they never got it back?”
He shakes his head. “Two men dressed like cops forced their way in. Tied up the security guards, threw them in the basement, then went around and grabbed what they could before the real police showed up. Cut paintings right out of their frames. No one has seen the men or the paintings since.”
I look around, noticing now that this isn’t the only empty frame in the room. “Have they kept the empty frames up this entire time?”
Ben nods.
“But what if they never come back?”
“Then they don’t.” He turns to me, his expression pensive. “But it doesn’t cost anything to hope, right?”