The humiliation was complete.
Eventually he’d let the answering machine take over and had hidden in his studio. Where he’d hidden all his life. From the monster.
He could feel it in their bedroom now. He could feel its tail swishing by him. Feel its hot, fetid breath.
All his life he knew if he was quiet enough, small enough, it wouldn’t see him. If he didn’t make a fuss, didn’t speak up, it wouldn’t hear him, wouldn’t hurt him. If he was beyond criticism and hid his cruelty with a smile and good deeds, it wouldn’t devour him.
But now he realized there was no hiding. It would always be there, and always find him.
He was the monster.
“You wanted to see me fail.”
“Never,” said Peter.
“I actually thought deep down you were happy for me. You just needed time to adjust. But this is really who you are, isn’t it.”
A denial was again on Peter’s lips, almost out his mouth. But it stopped. Something stopped it. Something stood between the words in his head and the words out his mouth.
He stared at her, and finally, nails ripping and bloody from a lifetime clinging on, he lost his grip.
“The portrait of the Three Graces,” the words tumbled from his mouth. “I saw it, you know, before it was finished. I snuck into your studio and took the sheet off your easel.” He paused to try to compose himself. But it was way too late for that. Peter was plummeting. “I saw—” He searched for the right word. But finally he realized he wasn’t searching for it. He was hiding from it. “Glory. I saw glory, Clara, and such love it broke my heart.”
He stared at the bed sheets, twisted in his hands. And sighed.
“I knew then that you were a far better artist than I could ever be. Because you don’t paint things. You don’t even paint people.”
He saw again Clara’s portrait of the three elderly friends. The Three Graces. émilie and Beatrice and Kaye. Their neighbors in Three Pines. How they laughed, and held each other. Old, frail, near death.
With every reason to be afraid.
And yet everyone who looked at Clara’s painting felt what those women felt.
Joy.
Looking at the Graces Peter had known at that moment that he was screwed.
And he knew something else. Something people looking at Clara’s extraordinary creations might not consciously realize, but feel. In their bones, in their marrow.
Without a single crucifix, or host, or bible. Without benefit of clergy, or church. Clara’s paintings radiated a subtle, private faith. In a single bright dot in an eye. In old hands holding old hands. For dear life.
Clara painted dear life.
While the rest of the cynical art world was painting the worst, Clara painted the best.
She’d been marginalized, mocked, ostracized for it for years. By the artistic establishment and, privately, by Peter.
Peter painted things. Very well. He even claimed to paint God, and some dealers believed it. Made a good story. But he’d never met God so how could he paint Him?
Clara not only met Him, she knew Him. And she painted what she knew.
“You’re right. I’ve always envied you,” he said, looking at her directly. There was no fear now. He was beyond that. “From the first moment I saw you I envied you. And it’s never left. I tried, but it’s always there. It’s even grown with time. Oh, Clara. I love you and I hate myself for doing all this to you.”
She was silent. Not helping. But not hurting either. He was on his own.
“But it’s not your art I’ve envied. I thought it was, and that’s why I ignored it. Pretended to not understand. But I understood perfectly well what you were doing in your studio. What you were struggling to capture. And I could see you getting closer and closer over the years. And it killed me. Oh, God, Clara. Why couldn’t I just be happy for you?”
She was silent.
“And then, when I saw The Three Graces I knew you were there. And then that portrait. Ruth. Oh, God.” His shoulders slumped. “Who else but you would paint Ruth as the Virgin Mary? So full of scorn and bitterness and disappointment.”
He opened his arms, then dropped them and exhaled.
“And then that dot. The tiny bit of white in her eyes. Eyes filled with hatred. Except for that dot. Seeing something coming.”
Peter looked at Clara, so far away across the bed.
“It’s not your art I envy. It never was.”
“You’re lying, Peter,” whispered Clara.
“No, no, I’m not,” said Peter, his voice rising in desperation.
“You criticized The Three Graces. You mocked the one of Ruth,” yelled Clara. “You wanted me to screw them up, to destroy them.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t the paintings,” Peter shouted back.
“Bullshit.”
“It wasn’t. It was—”
“Well?” yelled Clara. “Well? What was it? Let me guess. It was your mother’s fault? Your father’s? Was it that you had too much money or not enough? That your teachers hurt you, and your grandfather drank? What excuse are you dreaming up now?”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Of course I do, Peter. I understand you too well. As long as I was schlepping along in your shadow we were fine.”
“No.” Peter was out of bed now, backing up until he was against the wall. “You have to believe me.”
“Not anymore I don’t. You don’t love me. Love doesn’t do this.”
“Clara, no.”
And then the dizzying, disorienting, terrible plummet finally ended. And Peter hit the ground.
“It was your faith,” he shouted, and slumped to the floor. “It was your beliefs. Your hope,” he choked out, his voice a croak amid gasps. “It was far worse than your art. I wanted to be able to paint like you, but only because it would mean I’d see the world as you do. Oh, God, Clara. All I’ve ever envied you was your faith.”
He threw his arms around his legs and drew them violently to his chest, making himself as tiny as he could. A small globe. And he rocked himself.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
On the bed Clara stared. Silenced now not by rage, but by amazement.