“Do you find that odd?”
“I did,” she nodded. “Then Wallace suggested that maybe the icon was too personal to him, that he simply couldn’t deal with the idea of being separated from it, even in death.”
Matthew stifled a skeptical laugh. It had a ring of truth, after all.
“Mr. Wallace is a psychiatrist too, huh? Didn’t he draw up the will?”
“The primary will. Notes on the paintings were appended to my grandfather’s copy, in a safe, here. He didn’t believe in safe-deposit boxes. I guess that came from being a banker. At one point some pieces were left to Swiss museums, but those were crossed out. Wallace pressed him to come up with a plan, but he just wouldn’t deal with it. I think he believed he would live forever.”
“He did pretty well. Ninety-seven years old, the obituary said.”
“And very sharp of mind, right up until the last year or two. He had a bunch of illnesses and injuries in his eighties and nineties, all of which he bounced back from. I think the blindness really broke his spirit.”
“He was blind?”
“Almost. The last several years, his vision started to go. It was devastating for him. That’s when the other things, the arthritis and the weak heart, got the better of him.” Ana caught his eyes lingering on her a little too long. “That coffee is ready.”
The last thing either of them needed was more coffee, but it gave Matthew something to do, and he sensed that she took some comfort from his serving her.
“Wow, this is strong,” she said.
“Don’t drink it.”
“I’m up all night anyway, might as well be alert.”
“This has been very tough on you.”
“Mostly it’s the responsibility. There’s a lot to handle with the estate. I snipe at Wallace, but I’d be lost without him.”
“There’s no one else, no brothers or sisters, uncles, cousins?”
“My dad was an only child, and he’s gone. I’m his only child, so it’s just me on the Kessler side. There’s my mother, but she’s no help. She and my grandfather hated each other. Well, she hated him, anyway.”
“That’s too bad.” There was a story there, Matthew figured, but it was her business whether she felt like telling it. “You were close to him, right?”
“Off and on. Less so in recent years. Too much traveling.”
“You enjoy it.”
“Buying and selling art is what I do, for myself and a few friendly clients. I have to travel. But I do love it, it’s true. I keep waiting for the settling-down urge to hit me. You must travel a lot, also.”
“I lived in Greece, went to Turkey a few times. Ravenna, Venice, great Byzantine stuff there. Otherwise, I never go anywhere. Hate to fly.”
“Most people do,” Ana agreed. “I sleep like a baby right through turbulence. Must come from my dad owning a jet. I was always flying off with him someplace from the time I was, like, ten.”
“Was he in the art trade too?”
“The family curse,” she said, sadly, leaning back in her chair.
“Actually, he was a banker, like my grandfather. But he dabbled in art, especially when the old guy stopped being able to travel. In fact, he died on a business trip for my grandfather.”
Matthew wondered what to ask. She glanced over at him and he merely nodded.
“Plane crashed,” she went on. “Nobody knows why. Mechanical failure, I guess. He was a good pilot.”
“He was flying himself?”
“Oh, yeah, he loved to fly. But the circumstances were kind of awful. He and my mother were supposed to take a trip, about the same time that my grandfather was supposed to go to South America and see this painting. Another icon, actually. I guess the icon was being auctioned, or there was another bidder or something. Anyway, he got sick and persuaded my father to go in his place. So my dad flew down to check it out. And his plane crashed into a mountain in Venezuela, coming back. Took them days to find the wreckage and there was so little left they couldn’t figure out what happened. They think he was too low and hit the mountain in a fog bank, but we’ll never really know.”
He waited a few moments to see if she would say more, then found his voice again.
“When did this happen?”
“Fifteen years ago. I was in high school.”
“That’s a terrible story. I’m sorry, Ana.”
She shrugged. “History.”
“It must have wrecked your grandfather.”
“He was never the same. And my mother still hasn’t forgiven him.”
“Well. That’s unfair, but understandable, I guess. Given the circumstances.”
“I went through a period of blaming him, but it was no good. My dad could have said no. He loved that kind of thing, jetting off on a lark. You can’t live in fear of what might go wrong.”
“Maybe she’ll forgive him now that he’s dead.”
Ana scoffed. “Mother’s not big on forgiveness. She hasn’t forgiven me for reestablishing a relationship with him, and I’m her only damn child.”
He glanced at the clock above the refrigerator for the first time since arriving. It was late, after eleven.
“Doesn’t look like you’re going to get that reading done,” she said.
“It’ll wait.”
“Thank you for dinner. And for talking to me.”
“I don’t know that I said anything useful.”
“You listen, you ask good questions. And I find your voice soothing.”
“Almost puts you to sleep,” he countered, needing to make light of her words.
“Anything that puts me to sleep these days should not be disparaged.” She stood abruptly and stretched, rolled her neck about gently. “Come on, let’s make good on our deal.”
Matthew followed her down the old, looping staircase, his steps uncertain, his suppressed excitement leaping up again with distressing intensity. She fumbled for the lights in the small antechamber, and then they passed through the narrow arch. The chapel was smaller than he remembered, claustrophobic. He made a show of examining the panels from eastern Europe, stations of the cross, but his eyes were drawn inexorably back to the icon. The colors, subtle to begin with, appeared to shift about. The cloak was maroon, mauve, bloodred; the luminosity seemed to come from a place below the surface. Focusing on details usually helped, but the closer he got, the harder objective observation became. He grew agitated. One of the Virgin’s hands seemed to move, and he closed his eyes and stepped back.
“I’m not sure it’s good for you to be in here,” Ana said quietly.
“Don’t read your own discomfort into other people’s reactions.”
“I’m not. I’m looking at you, and you seem very uneasy.”
He shifted to avoid her gaze, then took a deep breath.
“Just tired. I should get going.”
In fact, he had no real desire to leave, but he was troubled by her attention, by her seeming need to get under the lid of his emotions.
“All right,” she answered.
He closed his eyes once more to compose himself. Then felt her hand on his shoulder, her lips on his, softly, gone again in a moment. She stepped back, the contact brief enough to have been only friendly if he saw fit to leave it at that. They faced each other for half a minute, enveloped by the warm light, the near walls. Ana tried to wait him out, but couldn’t.
“You’re not used to doing the work, are you? Things just come to you.”
“I’m sorry,” but it sounded less like the confused response he’d intended, and more like the apology it was. “Mostly, things just go away from me.”
“Poor boy.”
She turned to the door, but he reached out and gripped her shoulder. She turned back and kissed him again, more forcefully, and this time he took the hint.