Silence. All I could hear was the ocean outside. When I swallowed, it sounded deafening. Ivy said, “This was Terns?”
“Yeah.” Clyde picked up the book I’d been looking at earlier and flipped through the pages. It was weird for this to be the only noise in this huge house. He found the page, then looked at it for a long moment. “It’s canvas, ground shells, plaster, some tubes of paint. You think that’s worth a half a million bucks?”
“I think it was the centerpiece of your first solo show. I think it put you, officially, on the map as one of the rising stars of the art world at the time.”
“You’re not answering my question.”
“I’m not sure I understand it.”
Clyde looked back down at the photo, and I realized I was holding my breath. “The last year before he sold the farm, my father made thirty thousand dollars. And that was a good year. Farming is back-breaking, soul-killing work. His body was ravaged by the time he was sixty.”
Nobody said anything. Outside, some kids were running along the water, a kite bobbing over them. Clyde lifted up the book, turning it so Ivy could see the picture. “Canvas. Ground shells. Plaster. Paint. It was like an insult to him. I felt like an insult to him.”
From where I was sitting, the photo was just a blur of grays and blacks. Ivy studied it for a moment. “But you were his son, and that was your work. You were getting paid for it. He could have taken it as partially his accomplishment as well, no?”
No, I thought, at the same moment that Clyde shook his head. It would have been the same with my own parents. No matter how proud they were, that much money would change the balance, not only affecting how they viewed me but also making them assume I viewed them differently as well. Even if I didn’t.
“If I stayed in New York and lived that life, making that kind of money from then on, I knew I’d become an asshole,” Clyde said now. “But turning away and coming back here . . . that made me one, too. I couldn’t win.”
Ivy said, “But you did come back.”
“Yeah.” He looked out the window, at the kite bobbing, barely visible above the deck rail. “And I’m such an asshole.”
No one contested this. Not then, and not in the next half hour that I remained there, watching silently as they continued to talk. Clyde said a lot more about his work, his choices, his regrets. Glimpses here and there of things he might have done differently, or not, like a collage of words instead of materials. He didn’t speak to anyone but Ivy. He didn’t take breaks or ask questions about the house. And at one o’clock, when I slipped out the door to go back to work, I was pretty sure he didn’t even notice.
* * *
When I pulled up at the office, my father’s Subaru—recognizable by both color and its Connecticut plates—was parked right outside. I passed the open space beside it, which I would have taken otherwise, and parked around back instead. Then I came in through the supply room, as quietly as possible, so I could see what was going on.
As it was early afternoon on a Monday, things were pretty slow. My grandmother was on the phone, Rebecca sat picking at a salad at the front desk, and my mom was nowhere to be seen. I could hear my father in Margo’s office, so I dodged it, ducking into my grandmother’s instead, where I slid into a chair that gave me a clear view while still being hidden myself.
“Rolo?” she asked me, nodding at a half-open pack on the corner of the desk. I took one, sneaking a quick look at Margo, who was now getting to her feet as my father did the same. As they left her office and headed for the door, she suddenly glanced over, spotting me, and I ducked back out of sight. But not quickly enough.
The front door of the office swung shut. A moment later, though, I could just feel her in my grandmother’s doorway, even with the file cabinet solidly between us. “What is it with you two? He’s not a monster, you know.”
My grandmother grabbed another Rolo. “He’s not Santa, either.”
“Who else is hiding from him?” I asked.
“Your mother,” they said in unison. My grandmother pointed at me. “She was in that same spot until he turned his back long enough for her to escape.”
“Personally, I’m thrilled he’s here,” Margo said, adjusting her purse. “We’re going to North Reddemane to look at that house. If it’s half as nice as he thinks, I’m looking at a good chance for a decent commission.”
“It is,” I told her. “I was just there last week, when I was hanging out with Benji.”
“Is that the little boy that was here?” my grandmother asked.
“My half brother. He’s ten.” I looked at Margo. “Where is he now?”
“I sent him out with Morris,” Margo said.
“With who?”
“Morris,” she said, as if this was just the most normal thing you could do with a child. “What? He stopped by looking for you, the kid was bored, and we needed to talk business. I gave him ten bucks, told him to go get ice cream or something.”
Ice cream. She would not have had to tell him twice. Morris would do about anything for a fudge ripple from the Squeeze Serve.
“What I need from you,” Margo continued, “is to keep an eye on him while we do this house thing, then bring him back to North Reddemane. Say, in an hour or so.”
“What?” I said. “I have a job to do also, you know.”