Page 21 of Memories of the Lost

“Huh. Like, ‘You’re walking down a forest path and the birds are singing ...’”

“More or less.” His eyes glittered, and he made no defense nor took offense.

“I don’t know that I’ve met a meditation teacher before. Is that why you’re in the city?”

He nodded.

She plucked the bracelets on his wrist, rolled the beads beneath her fingers. “I should tell you I’m not in the slightest bit spiritual.”

“We don’t have to be the same.”

When the taxi pulled up to the gallery, she got out first and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for Liam, but her eyes were already searching for the painting. She only could see Jon’s giant abstracts, which practically hauled people in off the street. “Jon sold out last night, which if you don’t know, is pretty incredible.”

“Jon. That’s your friend?”

“Yeah.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh, bracing herself to go inside.

“You okay?”

She shrugged. “Maybe?”

He took her hand. Tillie looked up, grateful for the solidness of his hand. His presence. He was just tall enough that she felt appropriately small, a patriarchal bit of bullshit she nonetheless loved. Taking a breath, gripping his hand, she said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

A gallery worker greeted them as they came in. “Hello!”

“Just looking,” Tillie said, moving like an arrow toward the back.

And there it was, the painting. Medium size, 11 x 20 inches. Still not at all the sort of thing she usually gravitated toward, but it didn’t matter—her heart surged toward that porch, that cat, the figures. Did she want to buy it? She squinted at the price, but it wasn’t that she wanted to own it.

She wanted to enter it.

Next to her, Liam was quiet, his hand solidly holding hers. Their palms were starting to sweat, and she was afraid she’d gross him out. She let go. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman pretending not to hover. “Do you have any more information on this artist?”

“I’m sure we do. These six are the only ones we have, and they’ve only been here a week or so.”

Six. She hadn’t even registered the others. Another was clearly the same place, with the big rhubarb-looking leaves, and a road, and a house in the distance. None of them moved Tillie in the slightest. She liked the exaggerated color, but intellectually, not emotionally.

She looked more closely at the cat she’d connected with so deeply and saw that it had barely any details, just a shape in taffy and white. She’d supplied all the details herself, the whiskers and blue eyes, the stripes. “I don’t get it,” she said to Liam. “Objectively, I don’t really like this style, but I want to be inside it.”

“Does it remind you of something? Somewhere?”

She frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. I grew up on a farm upstate. We had cats, and even a porch, but none of these plants.” She mined her memory for images from her travels, but nothing rose to match this house.

The woman returned with a single sheaf of glossy paper. “Not a lot of information. The gallery is the main contact, and as you see, it’s just a single name. Shiloh.”

“Do you know where she paints? Where she’s from?”

The woman shook her head. “Sorry. I can find out for you, maybe.”

“Will you?” Tillie gave her the number. “Text me.”

“Are you interested in purchasing one of these pieces?”

“Maybe,” she said, to be polite.

As she turned away, she caught sight of the cat in the painting again, and felt a swoosh of something, like wind, or a noise she couldn’t quite identify. It made her dizzy, and Liam must have noticed, because he took her arm. She stayed still, waiting for it to pass. Terror rose.

What was happening to her? Was she going to succumb to a mental illness the way her mother had?