“I’m sorry,” Bob said softly, turning to her. “I’m sure the police cleared it up. I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s okay,” Lizzie stammered. Nothing was making sense. Bob was suggesting—what? That her father had something to do with the stolen paintings?
“No, it is not okay.” Rose was livid. “How dare you?” She grabbed her blazer, fumbled putting it on. “Who do you think you are, saying such things to us? Impugning my friend like that—a dead man who cannot defend himself. Come, Lizzie, we’re going.”
“No, Rose; wait, please,” Bob said, reaching for her. “It was stupid; I didn’t mean it.”
But Rose shook him off. “Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said to Bob.
“Why are you apologizing?” Rose cried.
“You can’t leave me here alone,” Bob said. “There’s still cake.” He tried to laugh.
“It looks,” Rose snapped, “like a pile of shit.”
Lizzie, behind the wheel of her car, was shocked into sobriety as surely as if she’d downed a pint of burned coffee. Rose sat beside her, fuming. “I am absolutely appalled. The nerve to suggest such a thing. Your father hired an investigator at his own expense when the police turned up nothing. Years! Decades! All on your father’s dime.”
“I know,” Lizzie said. “I know.” A strand of hair fell across her cheek; for a moment, nothing had ever felt more irritating. She yanked at it, clutched the steering wheel with the other hand.
“Bob gets these ideas in his head and he just says them—he’ll say anything that comes to mind. He is seventy-three years old and he has absolutely no idea how to behave. I am sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.” Lizzie rolled down her window. “Please.”
“It’s rather cold, don’t you think?” Rose said. “Do you need the window open?”
“I do, yes,” Lizzie said. “The fresh air is helping me, sorry.” She turned on the heat.
Within minutes, Lizzie had pulled up in front of Rose’s building. “You know, I bet my father would find it kind of funny,” she said as Rose unbuckled her seat belt.
“What? No.”
Lizzie was too worn out to explain. She only meant that her father wasn’t easily insulted. He was more confident, more certain of himself than anyone else she knew. She would call Sarah; she would tell her the story. She could hear her sister’s response: Oh, please, she’d snort. As if the police didn’t consider that on day one.
“Let’s talk tomorrow,” Rose said, and gave Lizzie a stern nod. Chin up, Lizzie felt she was saying. She nodded in return.
Leaving Rose’s, she turned onto Fairfax, heading back toward Venice. After a few blocks, she pulled over and called her sister, who picked up right away.
“The strangest thing happened tonight. I was having dinner with Rose,” Lizzie began.
“Yeah?” Sarah asked.
Lizzie hesitated. Why would she tell her the story? What did she think Sarah would say? She remembered that first night in the hospital, the V of Sarah’s thin gown puckering, the fluorescent light giving her skin a greenish cast, tubes snaking up from her hand taped to a pole; she heard the clicks and whirls of machines. It had only happened that once. Sarah had been stable for years and years now.
Still. Lizzie took a deep breath. She loved her sister. And the story she was thinking of telling now felt like a burden. “Rose has a boyfriend,” she said.
“So? That’s the strange thing?”
“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “I had no idea she was seeing someone.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” Sarah said. “Because she’s older? Sometimes you suffer from a lack of imagination.”
“That’s the truth,” Lizzie said, trying to blink away all that couldn’t be forgotten.
10
London, 1950
Rose didn’t know why she had settled on this particular antique shop, only that she had. For the past two months, the shop off Old Bond Street was the only one she visited. The smells of dampness and benign neglect made it seem more approachable than its price tags might suggest. Its poor lighting allowed her to examine merchandise in relative seclusion. But those weren’t the only reasons; so many of London’s shops were dimly lit and dusty. There was something about the heaviness of its furniture—much of it black oak, chairs covered in velvet, chaise longues formidable as stone—the knickknacks, the oil paintings in their ornate frames, and the trove of porcelain vases. Walking into the shop gave her a strange, unsettling sensation. It reminded her of home.
Today the salesgirl was busy helping a flaxen-headed boy who seemed to be far too young to be contemplating the brooch before him. It took Rose’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the light. She saw a large bronze peacock flecked with mottled green and purple that hadn’t been there the week before. She gave a marble chessboard and a jewel-encrusted cigarette case little more than a quick, practiced glance.