Page 57 of One of Them

D elia got back to New York in the middle of a week-long heat wave.

The days were steamy and oppressive, and unlike the desert, which never failed to cool down after dark, the nights were essentially the same.

She spent most of her time on West Eleventh Street, with fans set up all over the house; it was just too hot to go anywhere.

Helga was happy to see her and declared fattening her up as a personal mission.

“You so skinny!” she clucked repeatedly.

“You must eat more!” To that end, she baked pies, layer cakes, and muffins in shocking numbers; the kitchen was so hot that Delia wouldn’t even enter it and sought refuge outside, in the yard.

Sometimes she spied her neighbor George Frost out behind his house.

His garden was lush, filled with flowers and vegetables too; where there wasn’t greenery, there was a patch of slate on which stood four wrought-iron chairs, and a table topped by an umbrella.

She never saw him sitting there, though, and she never made any attempt to engage with him.

If Helga seemed unchanged, the same was not true for her father.

He was very glad to see Delia, and when she first came home, held her in a long embrace.

She studied his face, where new lines had appeared, and his hair, which badly needed a trim and was now almost entirely gray.

And talk about skinny—Simon’s clothes hung from his frame, shirts billowing and pants pooling.

What had happened? The answer came quickly: Harriet had moved out and left a gaping hole in his life.

While Delia was away, she and her father had exchanged letters intermittently—she told him about Paris, the search for the sculpture, and reconnecting with Gaby.

At first Simon’s letters had been newsy and upbeat; he wrote about his trip out west, meeting O’Keeffe—“a living legend,” he called her—his plans for the gallery, and other trips he wanted to take, on which he urged her to join him.

But then the letters essentially stopped; now she knew why.

“What happened with Harriet, Papa?” she asked one night over dinner.

They were sitting in the dining room, where three table fans had been set out, the gentle whir of the blades a soothing sound.

Helga had made a cold beet soup, which was perfect for the sultry weather.

“I thought you two were happy together.”

“I thought so too.” Simon swirled his spoon around in the soup but didn’t eat any of it.

“So then... ?”

“She met someone else.”

Delia looked at her father’s haggard face and felt a rush of pity. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to initiate the difficult conversation she knew they had to have. There were things she needed to ask and had to say, whether or not he wanted to answer.

Helga took the uneaten soup away and brought in a salad. Simon seemed more interested and speared a lettuce leaf, then a chunk of tomato.

“Did you ever find the sculpture?” he asked.

“No.” So he was taking the lead on this; good.

“I didn’t think you would. Were you in Paris the whole time? Is that where you were looking?”

“I was in Paris for a month or so. Everywhere I looked led to a dead end. Then I saw one of Sophie’s sculptures in a gallery right near our old apartment on the rue Vavin.”

“You saw one of her pieces? Which one?”

“Nothing you or I had ever seen before. It was done in 1946.”

“But that’s impossible. Your mother was killed before that.”

“Marie-Pierre was wrong. Papa, Sophie is alive, and living in Palestine—well, Israel now. I went there to find her.”

“Sophie is alive! What are you talking about?” He looked more alert than he had since she’d arrived.

“She wasn’t killed. Though she nearly was—she had a narrow escape.” Delia then told him the entire story Sophie had told her, including her having given birth to Asher.

“I can’t believe any of this. She made it up, every bit of it.”

“No, Papa! It’s true. I’ve seen her. I spent weeks with her and... my brother.”

“He’s not your brother.”

“Oh, but he is, Papa.”

“Well, maybe he’s your half brother, but this business about a Nazi soldier—it’s a lie. And it does sound like your mother. She loved telling stories, the more outlandish the better. This is just another example.”

“I believe her,” Delia said. “And if you’d seen her and met Asher, you’d believe her too.” She’d been thinking about Asher, and to her own surprise, she missed him. And Sophie—did she miss her too?

The next day, Delia took a walk to the gallery.

Simon told her it had been closed for a while.

She tried to get him to go with her, but he refused, so she went herself.

The shades were pulled down, and when she stepped inside, she saw that the place was a wreck.

Also dusty—she sneezed several times. Her first impulse was to turn around, lock the door, and not look back.

But something kept her rooted to the spot; she wasn’t going to abandon it.

A large canvas was facing the wall; she turned it around.

It was a lovely Fauvist seascape—brightly colored boats bobbing on a choppy blue sea, pink puffy clouds above.

Then she looked at some of the other canvases, and opened a drawer of the flat files, where she found several watercolors depicting different kinds of marine life, as well as a very finely rendered ink drawing of a ship with three masts and full sails.

What if she opened the gallery again? She could mount a little show of work related to water.

Not the most original idea, but better than leaving things as they were now.

She spent a couple of hours at the gallery, and though there was far more to do, she felt that she had made a good start.

At dinner that night, she told her father about what she’d done that day.

Though he nodded and made a few comments, he didn’t seem truly engaged, and as soon as he finished eating, he went upstairs to his study.

Delia was alone. Restless, she wandered through the rooms downstairs, stopping by the front doors.

Maybe she would take a walk; it wasn’t late, and it might be a bit cooler outside.

She reached for the key ring hanging on the brass rack of hooks, but it dropped and slid under the small chest of drawers where Helga always stacked the mail.

Getting down on her knees, Delia reached under the chest, feeling around for what she could not see.

There were the keys, but wait, there was something else.

It turned out to be a letter—no, two, both a bit dusty and both addressed to her.

The postmarks showed that they had been mailed from Poughkeepsie some weeks ago. She opened the first one.

Dear Delia,

I wanted to tell you that the missing sculpture you were looking all over Paris for has been found—it was in the United States, on Long Island, of all places.

I’ve been to see the work, and think your mother is a very gifted artist; I understand why you were so intent on getting it back.

And it just seems like great good luck that after all those months, it ended up so close to home.

The sculptures have been shipped to Poughkeepsie, but they can be shipped to your house or your father’s gallery. Please let me know what you prefer. This year I’m in Cushing, so you can find me there. Please write back. There’s a lot for us to talk about.

Always,

Anne

Delia put the letter down on the chest of drawers.

Her mother’s sculpture was now in Poughkeepsie, of all places.

How astonishing! But before she could even feel the full impact of this information, she was now even more curious about the other letter.

This one was on Vassar stationery and sent by someone named Professor Pamela Grayson.

Delia didn’t know her. She too was writing about the sculpture, some of which was apparently going to be exhibited at the Vassar Art Gallery, in a small show curated by Anne.

Anne curating a show of Sophie’s work? Professor Grayson was inviting her to the opening, which, Delia could see, had already taken place; she’d missed it.

But Grayson said the show would be up until November; that meant she could take the train up to see it.

Did she want to do that? She kept reading.

Miss Grayson brought up the subject of Delia’s expulsion and said that the president of the college had revisited the decision and decided to reverse it.

Delia could have a place in the class of 1952 or 1953, depending on how many courses she was willing to take in a semester. This was the most astonishing of all.

The next morning Delia went to the gallery.

There was still plenty of work to do but it did look better and that was encouragement enough to keep going.

Once she got started, she became immersed and didn’t even stop to eat lunch.

But she had an apple with her and had just taken a bite when she saw that there was someone at the door.

She was prepared to say that they were not open for business yet until she saw it was her neighbor George Frost. Delia let him in.

“Well, hello,” he said. Today he wore a pale-blue shirt under a light-tan jacket, its left arm pinned, as usual, to his shoulder.

“Hello, George,” she said uncertainly. Had he come to see her, or was he just passing by?

“I brought you these,” he said. “Since you have such a good eye for color, I thought you’d like them.” He handed her a bunch of peonies in a deep, rich magenta.

“They’re beautiful.” She was glad to be occupied by finding a vase and going to the sink in the back to fill it. Then she set the flowers out on the desk and picked up her apple.

“Lunch,” she said apologetically. “And it’s all I brought, so I can’t even offer you one.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ve already eaten.”

Delia concentrated on the apple, trying not to make excessive noise while chewing it. She still didn’t know quite why he’d come by.

“I’ve passed the gallery a bunch of times,” he said. “It’s been closed for a while, hasn’t it? But then yesterday I saw it looked different inside and I guessed you’d been here.”

“Now that I’m back in New York, it’s going to be open more regularly.”

“You were away for a long time.” It was not a question. “Where were you?”

“Paris,” she said. “And Israel.”

His eyebrows—unexpectedly dark for his light hair—shot up. “There’s a big difference between those two places. Must have been interesting, right? Compare and contrast?”

“It was very... interesting.” Really, what was he doing here?

As if he’d read her mind, he said, “Well, I’ll be going now. I just wanted to give you the flowers.” He moved toward the door. “Oh—and I also wanted to invite you and your father to dinner sometime. I’ve got so many vegetables out back that I’ve taken up cooking.”

So not only did he garden with one hand, but he cooked too?

“... since I’m by myself now, I can’t eat them all fast enough,” he was saying.

“By yourself?” Delia remembered the woman she’d seen him with, the ease in each other’s company they seemed to have.

“My mother passed away during the winter.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She had no idea. Then she blurted out, “Her coffee cake. It was delicious.”

He looked confused, so Delia said, “When we moved in, she sent over a cake she’d made. You brought it, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right. She loved to bake,” he said. “Me? Not so much. But I’ve been experimenting. With mixed results.” He smiled, a kind of shy, touching smile.

“We’d love to come to dinner,” Delia said. “Did you have a night in mind?”

“How about tomorrow at seven?” he said. “Is tomorrow good?”

Tomorrow. Why the rush? Delia was going to say something about tomorrow night not being convenient, but then she saw it on his face: hope, like a bright, syrupy glaze, and she couldn’t disappoint him.

“Tomorrow would be just fine,” she said. “I’ll tell my father. Is there something we can bring?”

“Just bring yourselves.” That smile again.

After he’d left, Delia looked at the flowers.

He was a nice man. Dinner might even be fun.

When she got into bed that night, she remembered that she hadn’t answered Anne or Professor Grayson and had no intention of responding to either of them until she’d thought things through.

And that, she realized, was going to take a little while.