It's not an outright admission, but it's not a denial either.
"No one," I begin before I stop to adjust the hem of my sweater. "I met her weeks ago. Judging by how pregnant she was then, she may have already had the baby by now."
He exhales slowly. "You've never met Maisy. There's no way you've ever met her."
I fidget on my feet. "I met her the day before I met you. I mean I saw her. We never formally introduced ourselves."
His arms cross over his chest. "What? Are you talking about the day before I saw you at the restaurant? That was the day before my birthday."
It may be a stall tactic or it could be that he's genuinely looking for confirmation of the exact moment I laid eyes on his pregnant almost fiancé. "I saw the two of you at the museum that day. It was the MOMA. I was there drawing people. I drew her, but you already know that."
"Slow down." His hands dart into the air between us. "You're not making any sense. You didn't draw Maisy. It couldn't have been her. I can't remember the last time I was at the MOMA and Maisy hates art."
He's the one not making any sense. He'd held that pencil portrait in his hands when he'd been on my bed the first time I showed my work to him. I'd watched in silence as he'd studied that drawing in particular. It had struck a chord deep within me when I drew it and since his were the first eyes, besides mine, that saw it, I wanted to gauge his reaction. I'll never forget how his lips curled at the sides as his eyes slid over the paper. He'd lowered his head slightly as his gaze took in each fine line of the portrait.
"You saw the drawing," I begin as I motion down the hallway towards the closed door of the spare bedroom. "I showed it to you."
His eyes follow the path of my hand. "You didn't show it to me. I haven't seen it. Was it at the gallery?"
I tug on the small pendant that's hanging from a thin silver chain around my neck. "I didn't take it to the gallery. It's here. You saw it right after we met. It was on that night when you asked to see my drawings in my old apartment."
He scrubs his left hand over his forehead. "No. There wasn't a drawing of Maisy there."
I've only ever assumed that Dane is honest with me. Before yesterday I may have questioned the legal merit of Maisy's refusal to leave his house, but I'd never actually believed that he was consciously withholding the truth from me. Maybe that means I'm naïve and unaware or perhaps it just means that I wanted whatever we had to continue into my future so I chose to ignore the obvious signs that he wasn't being completely transparent.
I motion for him to follow me down the hallway. I don't look back as I take each step quickly until I reach the door of the spare bedroom. I push it open with a quick twist of my hand on the doorknob. I turn towards the easel where the pencil portrait is sitting near the window. "It's there. That's Maisy."
His eyes scan my face before he turns his attention towards the drawing. He takes a step in that direction and as he stops, his hands drop to his sides. I watch from behind him as his head tilts slightly to the left, before it moves to the right. "Are you talking about that drawing right there? Is it the drawing of the woman with the long dark hair? The woman in the wheelchair?"
I nod before I realize that he can't see the motion. "Yes. That's Maisy."
He pivots on his heel until he's facing me directly again. His brow softens as he looks down at me. "That's not Maisy. I don't know who told you that was her, but they're wrong."
Chapter 6
"Vanessa saw the drawing." I gesture towards it with a dip of my chin. "She told me it was Maisy."
He cranes his neck around so he can look directly at the pencil portrait again. "I have seen this. You showed it to me weeks ago."
"Why didn't you tell me then that it was Maisy?"
He turns back to eye me warily before he moves closer to the easel. His hands dart out to grab the paper, cradling it carefully. "I remember looking at this. You showed me other drawings that night. There was one of a woman outside a flower shop."
There might have been. I can't recall exactly what each portrait looked like. The only clear memory I have of that night is the expression on his face when he was looking at my work. He was entranced and when he'd told me that he thought it was gallery quality, it hadn't mattered that he was a fireman who appreciated art from the vantage point of a frequent visitor to the city's museums. At that time, his words meant more to me than any that even the most educated art critic would have shared.
My chest expands on a deep breath. "You looked at that portrait of Maisy back then and you didn't tell me it was her. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't tell you because it's not her." He holds the paper in the air so it catches the early afternoon light that is streaming in from the window. "This isn't Maisy."
"Vanessa was sure it was Maisy."
"She's never even met Maisy." He shakes his head so slightly that the motion is almost unnoticeable. "I never introduced Maisy to her. My mother knows Maisy. My brother does too, but that's it."
His brother? The casual mention of a sibling I've never heard of only reiterates the reality that I know little about his life. I've never met any of his family beyond Garrett. I wouldn't know Dane's brother, or his mother, if I struck up a conversation with them on the subway. They're strangers to me, just as Maisy was until I saw her at the museum.
"Your mother was at the hospital with Maisy a few weeks ago." I try not to let all of the self-righteous indignation I'm feeling seep into the words. "Vanessa met her then. She saw them there together again two days ago. Vanessa said you were there too."
His jaw tightens. "My mother was with Maisy at the hospital? You're sure?"
I'm not sure of anything other than the fact that I feel as though I've fallen off a ledge into a bottomless pit of confusion. I don't know who to believe but I do know that Vanessa has never led me astray. She may view Zoe as her closest friend, but we've forged a bond the past few months that feels solid and secure. I doubt she'd willfully deceive me about the portrait. She saw Maisy in the woman's face in the drawing. Apparently, Dane doesn’t see the same familiarity.
I tap my shoe against the floor. "I'm sure. That's what Vanessa told me."
His brow furrows for no more than a few seconds before he drops his gaze back down to the pencil portrait. He studies it intently as he mumbles something under his breath about the color of her hair and its length. "Did this woman have a mole under her eye?"
"A what?"
His fingers brush across the left side of his face. "Did the woman in the portrait have a mole under her left eye? A small mole? Was it there?"
I pull my hand to my lips as I lean forward to peer at the drawing. I hadn't included that detail. I had noticed it almost immediately but as I stood next to her and finished the drawing, I hadn't added the mole. Once I got home from the museum, I finessed the fine lines and then I'd slipped the paper into the cardboard box with the dozens of others I'd completed. I meant to add the mole, but I'd forgotten.