Page 106 of The Picasso Heist

AGENTS SIGMA AND Tau are assigned to drive me to the airport. I don’t mention the unscheduled stop I want to make until I click my seat belt inside their Chevy Suburban. They, of course, immediately say no, not a chance. Then I tell them why, and they have a change of heart.

Sigma turns to me from the front passenger seat. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did, you knuckleheads.”

He chuckles. They both do. “Yeah, we’re really going to miss you, Halston,” says Tau.

Sarcasm truly is a lost art. These two are a couple of Picassos.

Deena Maxwell—Miss D—greets me in the foyer of the Sisterhood Foster Home. She knew I was coming, so she made sure Michelle would be there. It is a Friday, not our usual day. Of course, after going viral at Elise Joyce’s press conference, I am anything but usual.

I’m sure Miss D has a lot of questions after watching me at the podium with my brother, but she doesn’t ask a single one. This visit isn’t about her or the two of us, and someone with the compassion and fortitude to oversee an entire foster home understands that.

“Hey, Michelle!” she calls upstairs. “Halston’s here!”

I hear the footsteps before I see her scuffed-up pink Reeboks turning the corner around the banister on the second floor. Michelle had been told I was coming, but that’s all.

“Hi, Halston!” She practically leaps into my arms. “What’s happening? Are we going somewhere today instead of tomorrow? Huh? Are we?”

“Halston just wanted to stop by for a quick visit,” says Miss D. “Why don’t you show her what you were working on in the art room? I’m sure she’ll want to see it.”

Michelle’s eyes light up at the idea. She spins around and motions for me to follow. I mouth Thank you to Miss D, and she shoots me back a wink. I had asked her if there was somewhere in the house where I could talk to Michelle alone, and she knew just the place.

“Wow, this is cool,” I say, walking behind Michelle into a den that has been converted into an arts and crafts free-for-all.

Every inch of wall space, every tabletop, everywhere you look, there is some sort of creation.

Paintings, collages, sculptures, hanging mobiles—and yet I am still able to spot it immediately, pinned to a large corkboard.

“Can you guess which one’s mine?” asks Michelle.

“I don’t have to guess,” I say, pointing. “Did you really paint that?”

Of course she did. The squiggly lines and drips of paint, the splatters and the splotches. I am looking at a nine-year-old’s homage to Jackson Pollock, made with all the colors of the rainbow instead of just black and white and brown. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Do you like it?” she asks.

“I love it!”

“Do you see what I did with all the lines, the way they go zig-zag-zig?”

“I think that’s my favorite part,” I say.

“Mine too.” She folds her arms, smiling. “Miss D called it a master-piece!”

“I agree.”

“Oh, and guess who didn’t like it?”

“Janet from Another Planet.”

“She was just jealous, right?”

“Totally.”

“I can’t wait to show it to my mother,” she says. “And I can’t wait for you to meet her!”

It is an easy segue. Unfortunately, it isn’t an easy conversation. “I wanted to talk to you about that,” I say.

Michelle can hear something in my voice. “Is something wrong?” she asks.

“I can’t wait to meet your mother too. I just won’t be able to when she comes and visits.”

“Why not?”

“I have to go away for a little while,” I say. “It’s, like, a business trip.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but at least a few months.”

“You mean I won’t get to see you every Saturday?”

I watch as her eyes well up with tears. I know exactly what she is thinking: Why does everyone leave me?

“I promise you I’ll be back,” I say. “And I’ll make you another promise. When I do come back, you’re going to have a lot to tell me about. A lot of really good things.”

“How do you know?” she asks.

It would be so simple to be the hero. I could tell her about the job waiting for her mother when she gets out of rehab, as a receptionist at one of Amir’s dealerships in Midtown Manhattan.

Or about the rent-free apartment in one of the many buildings that Shen Wan owns in and around Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

Michelle will have her own bedroom, where she can hang as many paintings as she wants.

The biggest gateway drug in the world is poverty, Miss D had said. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that gate open again.

“How do I know about all these good things? I just know,” I say to Michelle, wiping a tear from her cheek. “But it’s a promise. You trust me, don’t you?”

She nods. “Yes.”

I know she does, which is another reason I can’t be the hero. It has to be her mother. She is the one who needs to earn back Michelle’s trust. She has to stay clean and stay focused on being there for her daughter. Always and forever.

“I’ll miss you, sweetheart, but I’m going to write you letters, and you’ll write back, and it will be just like we’re hanging out together,” I say. “And soon we will be again, okay?”

Michelle wipes away her remaining tears. She unpins her painting from the corkboard. “Here,” she says, handing it to me. “I want you to take this with you.”

“But don’t you want to show it to your mother?”

“I’m going to make another. It will be a special one just for her.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” I say.

We hug so tightly, I don’t want to let go. But I know I have to, and it isn’t just because there is a plane to catch.

I get back in the Suburban, and for the entire ride to the airport, I stare at Michelle’s masterpiece. Her own Autumn Rhythm. My finger traces all the lines going zig-zag-zig.

Life rarely comes at you straight, and the shortcuts are few and far between. Sometimes, to get where you want to go, you need to take the long way. It’s the unexpected path, or at least the path that no one else expects.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be off the grid for a while longer. But eventually I’ll be back around. This isn’t bye forever.

It’s just bye for now.