Page 51 of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter

René sneered. “How, Marguerite? I am a painter, but I can barely hold a pencil. Should I cut shapes from paper?” He snorted. “Perhaps I take up sculpting? I’m sure I’d be great with a chisel.”

He turned his back and didn’t speak to me the rest of the day.

I didn’t know what else to do, when suddenly the tremors improved.

I thought it was a miracle. After months of being unable to grip the brush, René was back at his easel, painting like a man possessed, and his mood improved. His work was different from before—big round shapes, clashing colors, and odd themes. I didn’t critique or comment because he was creating again, even if his muse seemed to have changed.

All was well until he started disappearing. Though he could paint again, I found him less in the studio and less in the house—staying out all night and not returning home for days. When he did return, the slightest comment could set him off.

And then the money went missing.

At first, small increments, then hundreds, then thousands of francs, vanished without explanation.

I suspected another woman but found the answer at the bottom of his coat pocket.

An opium vial stained blue.

I didn’t do anything at first.

Being with René—a René who could paint—was better than being without him, but that René slowly shifted, his sweetness souring, tension threading through our every interaction. With each passing day, he grew more irritable and violent, smashing wine bottles and slashing at his canvases. I wondered if one day that anger would be focused on me.

“There’s not a problem. I’m creating. It’s the process,” he’d bark and scream.

He grew skinny, his face haggard, eyes heavy lidded, at times zombielike, others manic. He continued the cycle, sleeping through the day, growing angry, and disappearing.

The final time, he was gone for a week, along with one thousand francs I’d hidden in the house for emergencies. After the fourth day, I was sure I would receive word of him dead in an alley, and half hoped I would, exhausted by his ups and downs. But I kept checking our familiar cafés and other haunts, hoping someone had seen him.

At the end of the week, I discovered him comatose in his studio, skin waxy, thinner than he’d been before. Wine bottles and blue opium vials littered the floor, and candles and soot-stained opium pipes lay prominently on the table. The room stank of sweat, smoke, and oil paint, half-finished canvases on three easels—sharp-sided figures with gnashing teeth.

I collected the bottles and cleaned the entire place, throwing the windows wide and waiting for him to wake up.

He did so slowly, groggily, blinking at the bright light with unfocused eyes. He started to smile, his old one, and for a second, I thought it would all be okay.

And it was.

Until he started riffling through the covers with his left hand, his motions frantic as he ripped the sheets back.

My heart sank.

I sat beside him. “René, you have to stop this.”

“Stop what?” he said, avoiding my eyes, still searching.

I gripped his hand. “You know what I mean.”

He snatched his hand back, getting to his feet, wobbling. “Who are you to know?” he spat.

“René! I’m only trying to help!”

He yanked the covers from the bed and pushed the mattress to the floor. “Do you think I don’t know how you taunt me? Do you think Ihaven’t noticed?” He dropped to his knees, scouring under the cracks of the bed. Finding nothing, he stood, knocking into me as he rambled through the table’s drawers, searching for his stash. “Where is it? You can’t hide it from me!”

He wouldn’t find it. I’d already disposed of it.

“René, calm down, lay back. Rest and let it pass. You can paint later.” I wrapped my arms around him, soothing. I’d seen him like this, before he disappeared.

He needed the opium. It had hooked itself into him.

He fought against me, thin but still strong. “You’re trying to trick me—you, you witch!”