The Masterpiece

  He hadn’t learned much about anything. “If I had to guess, I’d say I don’t meet with your approval.”

  “You weren’t looking for it, were you? You’re here to audit my niece’s life.”

  Roman didn’t feel like sparring with her. “You did a great job raising her.”

  “I didn’t have much choice, and I won’t take credit. Grace takes after her mother.” Grace and Miranda hugged in the entry hall. Elizabeth lowered her voice. “If you hurt my niece, I swear I’ll hunt you down like a dog and carve out your heart with a dull spoon.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “You know something, Ms. Walker? I like you a whole lot better for saying that. I was beginning to wonder if you cared.”

  “She’s been hurt enough by cavalier treatment.”

  “Not by me.”

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  GRACE TOOK OFF her sweater, folded it, and tucked it neatly behind her seat. “You and my aunt seemed to get along.”

  “She’s not exactly warm and fuzzy, is she?” He accelerated onto the freeway, wove through cars, and settled into the fast lane. “Although Ms. Spenser was overboard.”

  “She was like a second mother to me. It’s just her way to love people. If I needed mothering, Aunt Elizabeth called her. My aunt couldn’t abide teen angst or hormonal drama.”

  “Teen angst?” Roman gave her a droll look. “How did that look on you?”

  “Subterranean. I didn’t have time for emotions. I had to keep my grades up to earn a scholarship, and hold down a job so I could save for living expenses.”

  “She didn’t give you any help? Looked like she was pretty well off.”

  “I never asked.” She knew the answer would be no. “She gave me a home. That was more than she really wanted to do.”

  “What about love? Is she capable?”

  “Maybe you should examine your own life before you judge my aunt.” What right did he have to be critical? He’d cut off Chet and Susan for years. Jasper was his only true friend, and only because Jasper made all the effort. “You don’t know her.”

  He didn’t say anything for so long she felt ashamed. She didn’t want him to judge, and here she was doing it. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” His tone was bland. “You’re right.”

  “Her life wasn’t easy. She left Memphis to get away, and then got dragged back in when—” She caught herself. She couldn’t say more without bringing up what she didn’t want to remember.

  She wished she’d had time to finish her psychology class, maybe take more of them. The courses that fascinated her all had to do with human behavior. She longed for answers. What had made her father snap? Why had her mother stayed in an abusive relationship? Was she her mother’s daughter, as Aunt Elizabeth believed, prone to make the same mistakes? Did she have to repeat the same patterns? Why had it been easy for Aunt Elizabeth to read Patrick’s character and impossible for her to see? And if Aunt Elizabeth could see the truth about people, what terrible thing had she seen in Grace that she could never love her, not even as a niece?

  So many questions. A decade of searching for answers and trying to make good decisions.

  “When what?” Roman looked annoyed. “Finish what you were going to say.”

  Her heart pounded.

  Roman’s expression softened. “Whatever you tell me stays with me. Who am I going to tell?”

  “You might broadcast it on social media.” She hoped making light of it would end the conversation.

  “I want to know more about you, Grace. I want to know what makes you tick. We’re trying to become friends. Remember?”

  If she wanted to know him on a deeper level, she was going to have to take risks. Did she have the courage to open the door into the old darkness, that awful place of nightmares?

  Tell him, came the soft whisper.

  She released her breath. She recognized that still, small voice. She might not understand why He wanted her to speak, but she obeyed.

  “Aunt Elizabeth hated my father. She didn’t tell me that, of course, but shortly after I came to live in her house, I overheard a conversation between her and Miranda. My mother was Aunt Elizabeth’s only sister, younger by six years. They were apparently very close until my mother started dating my father. Aunt Elizabeth warned my mother not to get involved with him. She said he was just like their father. But my mother wouldn’t listen. She got pregnant. With me. They eloped. Aunt Elizabeth told Miranda she knew what would happen, and couldn’t bear to watch. She left Memphis before I was born. I never met my aunt until the day she came for me. She called once. My father told my mother she loved her sister more than him. It was the first time I saw him hit her.”

  Roman’s hands shifted on the steering wheel. “Did he ever hit you?”

  “He broke my arm once. He cried and said he was sorry. My mother took me to the doctor. She told me on the way he didn’t mean to hurt me. He didn’t know his own strength.” The doctor had wrapped her arm in a cast and asked what happened. Her mother had told her to say she fell out of a tree. It explained the other bruises, too.

  “He killed her, didn’t he?”

  Hearing him say it aloud made the old anguish come up. “My aunt thinks so. I overheard her tell Miranda the coroner’s report said it was an accidental death. My mother fell against the kitchen counter and broke her neck. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “Where were you when it happened?”

  She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. “My mother always watched out the front window for my father. If he came home looking angry, she’d tell me we were playing hide-and-seek again. I’d hide until she came to find me. I was hiding in the back of their bedroom closet. I didn’t hear what he said, but my mother was talking so fast. She was crying and saying, ‘Please listen; please listen . . .’

  “I covered my ears. It got quiet for a few minutes, and I listened, hoping my mother would come. But my father was talking. His voice was different. He kept saying, ‘Leanne, Leanne . . .’ He sounded scared. And then he started opening doors and closets. I thought he was hunting for me. And then he slid the closet door open. He threw boxes off the top shelf and found a gun. I must have made a sound because he pushed the clothes aside and saw me in the back corner.”

  Roman drove with eyes straight ahead. “Did he say anything?”

  She wiped tears away with a trembling hand. “No. He just stood there staring at me.” Her voice broke, and she looked away for a moment. Closing her eyes, she could almost see her father’s face. “After a minute, he pushed the clothes along the rod so I couldn’t see him anymore. I heard him leave the room. I was afraid he’d come back, but a few minutes later, I heard the shot.”

  Grace wondered what Roman was thinking. She gave a bleak laugh. “I’ll bet you’re sorry you asked.”

  “No. I’m not. But it’s not the life I imagined you’d had.”

  “Others have been through worse.” Bobby Ray Dean, for one.

  A wry smile curved his mouth. “I assumed you grew up in a nice family in some middle-class neighborhood, had lots of friends, went to church every Sunday . . .” He grimaced and uttered a curse. “Were you the one who found him? Your father?”

  “No. A police officer found me. He put my mother’s parka on me and covered my head before taking me out. A neighbor kept me until CPS came. I was placed in foster care until my aunt arrived.” She wanted Roman to understand. “It was hard on Aunt Elizabeth. She’d just lost her sister. Unfortunately, every time she looked at me—”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Grace.”

  “In a way it was. My mother wouldn’t have married my father if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me. When I married Patrick, Aunt Elizabeth said I was just like her.” She hadn’t meant to say that.

  “You were pregnant, and he was abusive?”

  “No.” She felt the heat surging into her cheeks. “We never did anything but kiss in high school. Then we ran into each other at UCLA, started studying
together. And he, well . . . we . . .” Embarrassed, she looked away.

  “You had sex.”

  What a blunt way of putting it. “I wanted to make things right. Patrick wanted to make things easy.”

  “And Samuel?”

  “My son came later.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Long enough to get Patrick through UCLA.” She shrugged. “A few months later, I came home early from work and found him in bed with someone else. The girl’s father owned the gym where he worked out.”

  Roman winced. “That must have hurt.”

  “Not as much as it should have. I think I knew why he married me right from the beginning. I just didn’t want to face the truth. Patrick needed me to get where he wanted to go. He never loved me. I was pretty pathetic when I think about it.” She didn’t want to talk about her life anymore. She didn’t want to be cornered with any other questions that might arise. Especially about Samuel. “Your turn to talk.”

  “As you pointed out a while ago, I had the Mastersons and Jasper. They loved me.”

  “They still love you.”

  “I have no idea why. I haven’t made it easy.”

  He didn’t make anything easy. “God was taking care of you.” God had taken care of her, too, even when she hadn’t realized it.

  “There it is again.” Roman gave her a half smile. “The God thing. Miranda talked about Jesus the same way you do. Like He’s a close friend.”

  Grace could let it pass, but it mattered what Roman thought, more now than ever. “He is her closest friend. He’s mine, too. I just haven’t been a very good disciple.” She had certainly missed shining any light for Roman or Bobby Ray Dean or whoever he was. If he knew her whole story, what would he think about her then?

  “When did you start believing? In Sunday school?” His smile was condescending. “Not going to say anything? And here I thought Christians were always eager to proselytize.”

  “How many do you know?”

  “I’ve met a few. In clubs.” He sounded cynical.

  She turned toward the window.

  “Talk to me, Grace.”

  His moods changed quickly. “I came to faith when I was seven, after my aunt moved me to Fresno.”

  “That’s about what I figured.”

  His tone implied he knew everything, but he knew nothing at all. She gritted her teeth. She hated that mocking tone. They had been talking about things that mattered. Who had started this conversation, and why? “My aunt didn’t proselytize, as you put it, and I’d only been to Sunday school a few times. I was still hiding every night when—” Just be quiet. Let him think whatever he wants.

  “When what?”

  Tell him, beloved. Now, while there’s time.

  Time? She didn’t understand. She and Roman had plenty of time, didn’t they? She worked for him. But something impelled her to heed the command. “I believed.” It was the truth. Part of it anyway. She wouldn’t say more unless he asked.

  “Just like that, you believed. How? Why? To please your aunt?”

  “It didn’t please my aunt!” She lifted her hands. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Beloved, obey Me. Trust Me.

  Roman glanced at her. “I want to know.”

  “You’ll laugh.”

  Roman pressed. “I’m not laughing now, am I? Your aunt took you to church, but didn’t want you to become a Christian. What am I missing?”

  Lord, please make him believe. “Wherever I was, I slept in a closet. At home, when I was in foster care, in my aunt’s house. It was the only place I felt safe.” He didn’t say anything. “I was afraid of my aunt, afraid of the nightmares that always came. I wanted my mother. Aunt Elizabeth was angry all the time, not like my father had been, but I felt it, even when she tried to hide it. I was afraid of her.” She closed her eyes tightly. “I was afraid of everything.”

  She took a deep breath, gathering courage to tell him the rest. “One night, I saw light under the closet door. It was different. I can’t explain it, but I was curious, not afraid. I came out and saw a man standing beside my bed. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen before. He was bigger than my father, and light was all around him. All the fear I’d been feeling went away. I climbed onto my bed and sat there and talked to him. I told him everything that happened. He told me I didn’t have to be afraid anymore, and I believed him.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “I never slept in the closet again.”

  “You’re saying an angel came to you.”

  Grace didn’t have to wonder if he was dubious. It was written all over his face. Okay, Lord, I did what You told me. He’s all Yours.

  “What did your aunt say when you told her?”

  “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone about him until Christmas, when Miranda talked about angels in my Sunday school class. She showed pictures, and I said angels weren’t girls and didn’t have wings and mine was big and strong and glowed. The other children laughed at me, of course. Just like you’re laughing.”

  “I’m not laughing.” He sounded angry, but then so was she.

  “My aunt heard about it later. She was furious. She told me to stop telling lies to get attention. I never mentioned him again.”

  “Until now.” His expression gentled. He drove for a few minutes, pensive. “Considering what you went through, it’s no surprise you had an imaginary friend.”

  See, Lord? “He wasn’t imaginary, Roman. I don’t expect you to believe it, but I know he was real and everything he said was true.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said God loved me. I believed him. I still believe. He told me I’d never be alone, and I believed that, too. I never stopped believing in God, even when I listened to people who didn’t.” Patrick for one. She’d never told him about the angel. Perhaps she should have remembered that before pouring out her most precious memory on Roman Velasco–Bobby Ray Dean. What was she hoping would happen? Had he ever shown the least interest in spiritual matters?

  “Does he still come to you?”

  Grace studied Roman’s profile before she answered. “No. Sometimes I wish he would.”

  “Why do you think he left you?”

  “I’ve wondered about that a lot. I think it’s because I didn’t need him anymore. When I accepted Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to live in me. That’s what the angel meant when he said I’d never be alone. I sense when God speaks to me. I don’t have to see an angel. Unfortunately, I haven’t always listened.” She’d dreamed about her angel several times over the last few years. After Patrick left. When she was expecting Samuel. In the dream, her friend simply came and sat beside her and didn’t say anything, his presence comfort enough. It was when daylight came that the worry returned, the fear she’d make another mistake, a bigger mistake.

  Was she making one now, telling her secrets to this man, allowing him to see inside her? Was she hoping he’d reciprocate?

  Roman looked so troubled, she felt sure she’d failed. “You haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been in the Vatican and a few of the famous cathedrals in Europe. I’ve seen people who believe. I wasn’t looking for God. I was there for the art.”

  They didn’t talk for a long while. She wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t ask.

  “You needed to believe someone cared.”

  He was trying to explain the inexplicable. “Someone does care, Roman.”

  His hands moved restlessly on the steering wheel. “My mother went out one night and never came back. CPS put me in foster care. Let’s just say I didn’t stick with the program. I kept looking for her until someone finally got around to telling me she’d died.” He gave her a cynical smile. “She was a prostitute like the ones you defended in Bodie. She died of an overdose at twenty-three. I was seven when she disappeared. You can do the math.”

  Pregnant at fifteen, a baby in her arms by sixteen.

  Roman look
ed pale, almost ashen. He spit out a word he hadn’t said since the first day she worked for him. “I don’t know why I told you all that.”

  She could hope it was for the same reasons she had shared her secrets.

  He moved into the fast lane again. “Where was God in everything you and I have been through, Grace? Tell me that. Where was God when your father was beating your mother to death and then blowing his brains out? Where was God when my mother was selling her body to keep a roof over our heads? She used drugs to feel better. Maybe she wanted to forget how she made a living. Maybe she wanted to forget she had a kid. Where was God in all that?”

  She gripped the edge of her seat. Did he realize how fast he was driving? “I don’t have answers. I have faith.”

  “I don’t believe in God.” His glance held a challenge. “If He exists, He’s a sadist. He’s a puppet master who tires of people and throws them in the trash. He’s a—” He used words that would have made Grace cover her ears if she hadn’t heard the pain behind them.

  “If there’s a hell, it’s right here on earth. And the only heaven we get is what you can make for yourself. This life is all we have, like it or not.”

  They both heard the siren at the same time. Roman glanced in the rearview mirror and swore again. The police car came up close, right behind them, lights flashing. Slowing, Roman moved right until he reached the shoulder. He put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Just what I need to cap the day.” He dug for his wallet.

  The officer tapped on the window. Roman lowered it and handed over his registration and driver’s license. The officer leaned down. “Do you know how fast you were going?” One hundred and ten. The officer took the documents back to the patrol car.

  Roman gripped the wheel with both hands, knuckles white. Grace saw the pulse throbbing in his neck.

  The officer returned and tore off the ticket. “Keep it under seventy, Mr. Velasco.” The patrol car stayed behind them as Roman pulled onto the freeway again.

  Roman didn’t speak for five miles. He turned on the radio. Less than a minute passed before he switched it off.

  “Okay. Let’s finish this conversation and be done with the God talk.” He gave her a grim look, as though he was about to dispense bad news. “I read a chunk of that Gideon Bible you recommended. Sure, it’s got some great stories, better than what was on TV that night. But that’s all it is, Grace—a collection of stories and some history mixed in. Same for all the rest of the religions in this world. There is no God. There is no Satan. No heaven or hell. We’re born. We do the best we can. We die. Game over.”