Page 91 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

After hearing of her skills as a conservator—from Samuel, no doubt—a collector in Evanston had sought her out for his own acquisitions, privately hoping that she would strike gold again with a hidden artwork. She didn’t say it, but she knew that such discoveries only came around once in a lifetime. Vivi took the job anyway, guessing that between freelance conservation work and the museum catalogue essays she hoped to undertake, she might manage to stay afloat for some time. And if she didn’t? Well, these days, she could hold on to uncertainty. Her life stacked with questions and, for once, those questions had begun to excite rather than petrify her.

Samuel tucked his head self-effacingly. “It’s gracious of you, letting us display the sketch too. Abel can’t believe his luck. He’s saying they were too hasty in letting you go.”

“He wasn’t. I deserved to be let go.”

“But I didn’t.”

“I know that, Sam.”

They walked out of the gallery, into the open-air pavilion scatteredwith wrought-iron tables and chairs that reminded Vivi of Arles. After she landed at Midway, she had a message waiting for her from Samuel. They talked for hours. She answered every question he had. She told him all she could about the offering, knowing that he might not believe her—after all, where was the evidence? Where was the sole witness to her discovery?—but he did, unreservedly. Their conversation wasn’t forgiveness, but it illuminated the dark spaces between them, if only for the moment.

After she hung up, she slept for what felt like days. Without the offering or the journal in hand but imbued with a consuming sense of tranquility, she no longer felt the urge to waltz into Samuel’s opening and salvage her reputation. She let him have the space to come to her. Since that first conversation after she returned to Chicago, aside from professional emails about the loan of the sketch, he had remained remote. She wondered, in a quiet corner of her mind, where the eighteenth-century chatelaine was now. She wished she could have held it once more.

Then, last night, Samuel asked her to meet him in person. Vivi threw cold water on the hope that blazed in her chest.

In the courtyard, they settled under the shade of a tree, feet crossed in front of them. Samuel wiped his glasses lenses. Without them, he seemed younger and more open. There were sallow circles under his eyes, a faint scruff along his jaw. Vivi’s thumb itched to run along the perimeter of his features, those deeply known landmarks of her heart.

Instead, she took out a small canvas from her messenger bag and handed it to him. “I’ve started painting. This is for Phoebe.”

The painting was a dance of watercolors. Pink helixes sprang against a lustrous yellow background, strokes flung in a riotous jubilee. For Vivi, the painting evoked a sense of release. It was carefree and unrestrained. It made her think of Calla, running toward her sunlight.

Vivi’s style, unlike her father’s classical streak and her sister’s unflinching verisimilitude, leaned toward the emotive and abstract. She knew the paintings weren’t good enough to display publicly. Maybe theynever would be. That wasn’t the point. Vivi could give herself to the work without expecting anything in return. Art for its own sake.

But still. She held her breath for Samuel’s opinion.

Samuel was examining her painting, turning it to the light and back toward himself. His face relayed the focus of an admirer, not just a critic or a curator. She respected how he could inhabit two consciousnesses at once.

He said, “These are Phoebe’s favorite colors. She has a pair of boots in exactly that shade of yellow.”

“I remembered. I thought she could be the one to name the painting, if she wants.”

“She’s going to want to thank you in person. Along with the jewelry box you sent her.”

“Even after everything I’ve done?”

“She asks about you all the time. She never gave up hope that you’d come back.”

“And you?” It came out as a whisper.

His eyes clouded. She could almost hear the tightening of his jaw, the anger splashing its way back to the surface. “I need time.”

Vivi nodded. What else was there to say? She began gathering herself up to leave, smiling awkwardly at him, trying to express that it was okay, she understood, she wouldn’t expect any other outcome. He watched her flounder. Then, all at once, his mouth released its tension, as if an internal debate had been settled.

He reached across the table, stopping her with a press of his hand. “But we have plenty of time, don’t we?”

She could only nod again, overcome.

“Did you mean what you said in the email?” he asked. “About the way you love me?”

“I can’t remember what I wrote.” Vivi blushed; she did remember, of course. Only, she hadn’t intended him to read that email. If not for Calla, it would be buried in some digital graveyard.

Samuel reached over and, with his free hand, touched the freckle onher cheek with the pad of his thumb. “‘I love you the way I love a painting, a tapestry, a perfect ivory sculpture. Not because they are simply beautiful. But because they change the lens of the world. They—you—have expanded the contours of my soul.’ Did I get that right? I’ve only read it a thousand times since you sent it.”

Her eyes filled. A leaf fell from a tree into the fountain, where it squiggled in the water like a dancer’s wobbly turn.

He went on, as if his words had been biding their time. “And I realized: that’s why you strippedBlue Lovers.You can see beyond beauty, to whatever truth lies out of reach. You might evade, Vivi—God, can you run from a person—but you never lie. Not when it matters. And you won’t tolerate art that lies either. That’s why I loveyou.Because, despite everything that has happened to you, you ache for what is good and true.”

For the first time in her life, Vivi stood without balking in the light of another person’s gaze and let herself believe the vision reflected there. She was not a perfect human, but she deserved goodness. The knowledge washed over her until she shook down to her toes.