* * *
—
The name of the woman Mercy had met at the dry cleaner’s was Evelyn Shepard, and she phoned in mid-October and invited Mercy to tour her house. “I think we’ve settled in by now,” she said, “and I wanted to see how you might choose to paint it.”
“I’d be happy to come take a look,” Mercy said.
“If you can stop by when my husband’s here too…”
“I can do that.”
“And maybe bring some samples of your work? I showed him the picture on your card, but—”
“Of course. I’ll bring my portfolio,” Mercy said.
And she made a mental note to hunt through her desk drawers at the house for the leather-grained cardboard portfolio she’d saved from her days at the LaSalle School.
They chose a Saturday morning, which meant Mercy had the car. She parked down the block from the Shepards’ house in order to get an overall impression of it as she approached; she wanted to arrive armed, so to speak. It was a standard three-story colonial, red brick with forest-green shutters. Well, never mind; she usually preferred interiors to exteriors anyhow. She pressed the doorbell and then studied it intently. Her vision seemed to have sharpened and she was alert to every detail. But it was an unexceptional doorbell, a white rubber button set in a fussy brass plaque.
Evelyn Shepard opened the door and said, “Good morning, Mrs. Garrett!”
“Oh, please, call me Mercy,” Mercy said.
“And I’m Evelyn. Won’t you come in?”
Evelyn wore heels, on a Saturday in her own house. Just low heels, but still. She was slightly younger than Mercy but already matronly-looking, with carefully curled brown hair and a dressy flowered dress belted tightly at the waist. “Clarence?” she called. “The artist is here.” She led Mercy across the foyer—Persian carpet, crystal chandelier—and into the living room, which was very large and formal, with a grand piano at the far end. Mercy’s eyes were going click, click, click, registering all they could. “You have a lovely home,” she said politely, and she sat where Evelyn directed, on a slippery satin sofa, but then instantly stood up again when Clarence entered the room. “Oh! Clarence!” his wife said, as if he had surprised her. “This is Mercy Garrett, the artist.”
Clarence was older than his wife—gray-haired and mustached, with an ascot blossoming from the open collar of his shirt. Outside of English movies, Mercy had never seen an ascot. The sight gave her confidence. In a flash, she was able to place these people: newly settled in a house designed to be imposing, wearing clothes they’d bought expressly to live up to what they thought it required of them. “Your house is beautiful,” she told him, and this time her voice was firmer and she was smiling warmly.
After that it was easy. The Shepards settled on either side of her and she pulled paintings from her portfolio—a sunporch, a breakfast nook, and what she called a “music room.” （It wasn’t a music room; it was Alice and Kevin’s living room, but she instinctively altered her vocabulary to suit the circumstances.） With each one, as the picture’s focal point sorted itself out from the surrounding blur, Evelyn said “Ah!” but Clarence remained silent. “So this one,” Evelyn said of the so-called music room, “with the photograph on the end table; I’m guessing that’s a picture of the house’s original owner, am I right?”
She was referring to a photograph propped next to a conch shell: Kevin’s father or uncle or something in a visored Army cap, glaring belligerently out of a silver frame with infinitesimal silver beads around the edges. Mercy said, “Yes, an ancestor on the husband’s side,” and flipped to the next painting: her and Robin’s bedroom. A rectangle of bed, a slash of floorboards, and then part of a rocking chair with a nightgown draped over one arm, every wrinkle and stitch painstakingly defined.
“The essence of that house is a nightgown?” Clarence asked.
“Hush, Clarence,” Evelyn told him.
“And here we have my granddaughter’s nursery,” Mercy said. （“Nursery!” She liked that.） The sketchiest of vertical lines suggested the slats of Robby’s crib, but the braided rug it stood on was so detailed that the rosebud print of Mercy’s old sundress showed clearly in one of the strands.
“I just think that’s so unusual,” Evelyn said on a long sigh of a breath.
Clarence said, “Have you ever tried painting the whole scene in detail, instead of just one part?”