Now, as an adult with a degree in art history, Regan could see that the painting wasn’t anything especially impressive. It was by an artist who was quite famous now, which had been its appeal to begin with, who probably now earned a tidy sum for every commissioned work. This one, an early piece, would have only increased in value; John Regan, a master of investments, had somehow known enough to project what it could be worth.
Regan stepped towards it, eyeing the brush strokes. They weren’t elementary, exactly, but neither were they particularly emotional. There was no frantic passion, no compulsive need. This wasn’t a painting made to satisfy the heart, but rather to buy the groceries. It occurred to her that this was what her father had meant when he’d said austere. Regan, with her art historian eye, understood upon viewing the painting that he had meant severe, distant, emotionless. Devoid of meaning, in her eyes.
Austere. It’s a cold word, Aldo had said once, the memory of it igniting her with a chill.
The subject matter was an architectural landscape. All hard lines, soulless verticality. This was beauty? Of course it was, she knew that. She should take her pills. Lines like that would be incredibly easy to recreate. Replication, redundancy, recidivism. The whole painting was nothing special, take your pills, Regan, （Are you happy with the space I took in your life?）， it was nothing particularly impressive. How had her father loved that painting so much? How had he mistaken something so trite for brilliance? Take your pills, just take them, you’ve done it a million times, it means nothing and nothing will ache if you don’t want it to. This was nothing. This painting was nothing. His approval was nothing. Take your pills. He would miss genius if it slapped him across the face, if it backhanded him with malice, if it tore free from its constraints to defenestrate itself from the window, if it lay awake in his guest room for the entirety of the night. Are you taking your pills, Charlotte? Of course, Mother, fucking of course I am, and if I weren’t I would lie to you, because you already stole my capacity for truth. Because you needed me to be a lie, like you are. Of course you want everything to look tidy, you want everything in its place, you’re a forgery, a fake. Your name isn’t Helen. This painting isn’t beautiful. You have never understood beauty and all the worse for you, you never will.
Regan turned and walked out, moving intently now, her footsteps less a kiss this time than a clap of thunder as she went. She dug through the drawers of her bedroom, furiously searching until she found her acrylics, her canvases, every scrap that still remained of her prior self. She hurried to grab it all, guessing at color values and tucking things under her arms. She raced back to her father’s study, positioning herself across from the painting until Aldo’s face had finally eased from her mind.
God, this probably wasn’t even Europe; just a painting of a painting. A painting of a Google search, even, meant for nothing but to land in some rich white broker’s house in a room that no one ever saw. The artist had probably tested paint swatches on the margins of a past due notice for his rent.
Good, Regan determined. Better that way. Better that the work was empty to begin with, better for it to stay hollowed out and vacant. The less there was of it, the better. Easier to cure its ills.
She glanced down at the canvas, taking hold of the brush, and for half a second, held her breath.
Then, for the first time in three years, four months, and fifteen days, Charlotte Regan began to paint.
* * *
“DO ME A FAVOR,” SHE SAID, and Aldo looked up, surprised to find Regan in the doorway once again. This time, though, the sun was beginning to come in through the window, and he could see her clearly.
Could see clearly, too, that she hadn’t slept.
“Yes,” he said, “sure.”
“Can you drive?” she asked him, swiping the back of her wrist against her forehead. Her hair was pulled back in a graceless ponytail, wisps escaping from her temples. “Like, you know how, right?”
“Yes,” he said. Of course he did, he was from California where everyone drove, but she looked distracted. He didn’t blame her for letting that escape her attention.
“Can we leave now?”
“You don’t want to say goodbye?”
She shook her head. “I want to go back.”
“Okay,” he said.
They walked out to the garage, not saying another word. He got in the car. So did she. He glanced in the rearview mirror to notice the corner of something oversized and white poking up from where it had been placed inside a box, nestled in the backseat. He said nothing, and neither did she. She curled up in the passenger seat, resting her head against the window, and closed her eyes. Aldo started the ignition, pulling out of the drive and into the street, the little voice of her GPS instructing him. The sound of the turn signal was like a swinging pendulum, the silence emphatic and punctuated. He turned, she breathed. He thought about the cars on the road, the lines, and the precise moment he would go back to if he could.