He’s younger than I originally thought. Isaac’s age. Maybe a year older. It’s hard to tell, but he’s closer to being a boy than a man.
The light changes. A group of giggling girls in their school uniforms race in front of me, pointing up at a giant screen on a building that in between news programs is featuring highlights from the “USA Proud” pop boy band currently touring all fifty-one states. I dodge around them and hurry forward, determined to keep the guy I’m following in view. He glances over his shoulder, and I try to pretend I’m just another tourist looking up at—what? I fix my eyes on a bronze statue of a man with his fist raised to the sky and wait several heartbeats before glancing back.
Damn. The black hoodie has gotten farther away.
Sweat drips down my neck as I zigzag through the people on the walkway. The boy crosses the street and heads for the bridge that leads over the river. I pick up my pace from a jog to a run.
A horn honks.
Fingers dig into my arm, and I’m yanked backward to the curb. I stumble and clutch my tablet as cars stream by.
A man in jogging shorts and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt helps me get my balance. “I’m sorry if I grabbed you too hard, but I didn’t want you to get hit.”
I stammer my thanks, then rise on my tiptoes and shift from side to side, catching glimpses of the sweatshirt as it gets farther and farther away. The light changes and I bolt forward. I push through people who are crossing the street in the opposite direction. My heart drums faster as I hurry toward the bridge, but when I get halfway across the expanse of the river I have no choice but to admit the obvious. The black sweatshirt and the boy who pocketed the paper have vanished.
How much time has passed in my wild-goose chase, I don’t know, but Rose and Isaac are going to be seriously worried and probably a whole lot annoyed if I don’t contact them soon.
Shaking my head, I turn and walk along the arching, rust-red iron bridge back to the side I came from, feeling foolish for having wasted so much time on . . . whatever that was. The light is red and I tap my foot, impatient for it to flash green. A seagull calls overhead. I look up and watch as the stretched white wings soar against the blue sky, then dip lower. The bird flies in front of the top of one of the large stone support posts that flank the end of each side of the bridge, and even though everyone else starts walking toward the crosswalk, I can’t move. My feet are like stone.
On the top of each of the supports is a set of windows. Above those windows is an artistic iron roof. And in the center of it is a design that I know almost as well as I know my own face. I should. I’ve looked at it every day for the last three months. The hard curves and dark shapes.
It’s an image out of one of my mother’s final paintings.
Three
What feels like an eternity passes before I can get home and assure myself I wasn’t imagining things.
When I climb into his car, Isaac is irritated my meeting took so long. He huffs and snaps at me to get in and doesn’t wait for me to fasten my seat belt before he hits the gas. Rose, however, is thrilled that Victor Beschloss talked with me for over an hour and wants to hear details.
“Did he love your portfolio? He must have, considering how long you guys talked. I knew you had nothing to worry about. Can I see what you showed him?”
Since the questions come in such rapid succession, there is no need to answer any other than the last. I bring up the portfolio images and put the tablet into Rose’s outstretched hands. She oohs and aahs and makes all sorts of comments about the subjects and the bright colors. I smile as if I am listening, but in my mind I’m picturing the series of small canvases leaning along the wall of Mom’s studio.
Isaac yells at another driver and steers the car onto a less congested street. Rose continues asking questions, seemingly unconcerned by the speed of her brother’s driving or the quick succession of accelerations and stops. Rose pauses after each of her next questions, so I have no choice but to focus and answer.
No, I don’t know when they will contact the people selected for the City Art Program.
Yes, I saw one of my mother’s colleagues, but I didn’t really have time to talk with her.
“Well, when you’re working in the program, you and she will have lots of time to talk,” Rose assures me as Isaac pulls the car to the curb in front of my house.
“No offense, Meri, but get out,” Isaac says. His sister smacks him on the shoulder and he glares. “I still have to change before I meet Dad.”
“I really appreciate you driving me, Isaac,” I say, pushing open the car door. “Tell your father thanks and I’m sorry I made you late.”
Rose yells that she’ll call me as the car zips away from the curb. I wait until it is out of sight before I race into the house and back to Mom’s studio. Could the picture really be the same as the design I saw today on the bridge?
I flip though the canvases leaning against the wall.
Air catches in my throat.
There. That picture is the same image that I saw today.
I pull up the photograph I snapped of the top of the bridge with my tablet, zoom in until just the sculpted onyx iron of the image is showing, and compare it with the one in front of me. One that I had once believed was an abstract floral.
The large round centers in the tablet photograph and the painting are identical. Both have three curved petals at the top. Neither has individual petals at the bottom. Instead there is just one rounded curve that spans from one side of the round center to the other.
This isn’t some strange thing my mother saw in a dream and worked on despite it being a waste of resources. This is an identical representation of a small piece of the city I never thought to look closely at before.
I grab the other paintings from their perches on the floor and set them up on easels around the room. Now that I understand the images aren’t abstract, I look at them with a fresh eye, searching for anything that appears familiar.
Yes. The last one in line has a hard, rust-red curve. That’s the same shape and color as the supports of the bridge from today. The La Salle Street Bridge. And I think the one with bluish stone-like texture and a curved bit of burnished bronze could be the edge of the podium and statue that I passed today while following the guy in the black sweatshirt.
My mind spins as I look from picture to picture—at the unfinished work that has haunted me since my mother’s death.
I don’t see any other part of the La Salle Street Bridge reflected in the rest of Mom’s other paintings. But I feel as if I might actually be getting closer to finally understanding. . . .
A door slams. Dad’s home. And when I glance at the clock I realize how long I have been staring at the pictures. Dad is later than normal. Much later.
When I walk into the kitchen, it is obvious as to why. My throat tightens. His gait is unsteady, and when he turns toward me the pink in his cheeks and the dull, glassy sheen across his eyes make it clear he has broken his promise . . . again.
Whatever he sees on my face causes his tentative smile to fade and his shoulders to slump. “Meri . . .” He takes a step forward. “I saw a woman in the lobby at work who looked like your mother. The others invited me to get a drink and . . .”
His voice trails off. His eyes search my face, begging for forgiveness.