Tim Wynne-Jones - The Uninvited

And so she waited.

At first Marc could only find a tiny one-roomed place; the prices in New York were outrageous. It was a wonder he could find anywhere at all. And this place was definitely not big enough for two people, let alone a new baby. But things were going well. He would get a bigger place.

And so she waited.

She didn’t talk-didn’t tell a soul. Grew fat with child. Kept the child’s father her special secret. Not that she was often in Ladybank, anyway. She was living up in Chester’s Corner back then. Didn’t need to go to town hardly at all. Had the baby at the hospital in Smiths Falls. No birth announcement in the Ladybank Expositor, though she was dying to share her joy with the world.

And she waited.

And waited. And he stopped calling. And he never came for her. But still she waited, until the day when she didn’t even know where he lived anymore.

A love story.

Cramer had Googled Soto a few times, back in high school. It had shocked him to find the man. He had half expected the artist was imaginary. But there he was, a big shot, just as Mavis had claimed. Mostly there were pictures of his paintings, articles from newspapers and magazines. But there were a few photographs of the man himself, too, the best one appearing in a profile on his gallery’s website. He was a smooth man with glossy black hair. His eyes were as blue as Cramer’s own eyes. It was eerie. Cramer didn’t like him, didn’t like his chiseled, smug face, his liar’s smile. He wondered whether he should download any of this stuff to show Mavis. They didn’t have a hookup out at the house. He decided not to. She had spent so long a time forgetting the bastard, it would be cruel. Cramer didn’t check up on Marc Soto after that. By then Waylin Pitney had started coming around, and that was more than enough to deal with.

Until he saw Mimi heading out to the snye with Jay, it had been four days since Cramer had seen her; it might be four days before he saw her again. But he thought about her all the time, especially when he was working out. Four sets, fifteen reps. Upright rows, lateral raises, flies and pullovers, curls and squats. Chin-ups to bulk up his lats, bench presses for his pecs, bent-over raises for the deltoids. Lunges, hack squats, triceps curls, wrist curls, reverse wrist curls. He piled on the weight, expanded his circuit. But he wasn’t bulking up for Waylin Pitney anymore.

Cramer woke up. Thursday morning, 11:00 AM. He’d managed five hours sleep after getting back from the plant, but Mr. Pretty expected him at the store by one. Despite the lack of sleep, his mind felt wonderfully clear. He wasn’t angry anymore-didn’t want to be-pushed it aside. For one thing, she was staying. Mimi was obviously moving in. There was a bad side to that-namely, Jay-but at least she was still near. He lay there, his hands folded behind his head. Last night the shift manager had talked about getting him on full-time at the plant. Full-time meant security, and maybe he could parlay that into a loan. He’d talk to Hank Pretty about it. This money-for-Mavis thing would work out fine, without stealing stuff.

He listened. There was no sound downstairs. His mother must have gone out. That was another encouraging sign. She was getting out more, getting some air, going for walks up the road or down to the creek. One day she walked all the way to the old bridge at the very end of the Upper Valentine, or so she said. Quite a hike. But she looked better for it, stronger. He wouldn’t tell her about getting full-time just yet. He’d surprise her.

He listened again. Then he dug the silver-framed picture of Mimi out from under his mattress. She and her friend on a beach somewhere, their arms around each other, their sandy cheeks pressed together, smiling at the camera. “Jamila and Mimi, summer ’06” was written in gold across the bottom of the picture. He groaned softly, closed his eyes, and pressed the picture to his heart.

You can have the bedroom,” said Jay.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. That way if I decide to stay over, I can work at all hours of the night and not bother you.”

She nodded. “Thanks.” She had thought the same thing herself.

“And you’ve got your desk in the front room,” he added.

“Right.” She grinned at him, felt awkward about him making all the decisions. She had never had to negotiate about who had what when and where. She was a spoiled brat and she knew it, but then so was he. This was so strange. She was moving in with a guy, and yet she wasn’t really. Not a guy — guy.

“I’ll help you with the mattress,” she said. And so they hefted his bedding upstairs and flopped it in a corner. That was when she saw the stones. They were lined up on the windowsill of the gable, but she hadn’t noticed them that first day up here; there had been too much else going on.

“These rocks are famous,” she said, picking one up and turning it over in her hands.

“You recognize them?”

She nodded. “The sketches in the guest room?”

Jay looked impressed. “You don’t miss much.”

“Actually, they’re even more famous than your guest room. There are paintings, too,” she said. “Humongous paintings.”

Jay looked skeptical.

“Utterly humongous,” she said, proud of her father, despite herself. “Twelve feet square. Seriously!”

Jay took one of the stones from her and looked it over.

“The paintings are pretty abstract,” she said. “More color-field stuff than really representational. But you’ll recognize them when you see them.”

“When I see them?”

She made a face. “Well, you’re going to visit me, aren’t you?”

“Hadn’t gotten that far,” he said. “But yeah, of course.”

“There was a retrospective at the Whitney a couple years back,” she said, putting the stone she was holding back down again. “There was this stupid column in the Herald: ‘Soto Gets His Rocks Off!’”

“Ugh.”

Then Jay’s attention had drifted to the windowsill, and he looked concerned all of a sudden.

“There’s supposed to be nine,” he said.

Mimi counted. Eight. There were supposed to be nine; she knew that. Then they looked at each other, and she stroked his arm because his face had gotten sad again, bent out of shape over a missing stone.

“It could have been gone for a while,” she said.

“Oh, that makes me feel much better.”

Mimi set up the desk right where her father’s desk must have been. It was in the big room, under the left front window, with a view of the snye, looking as pretty as a picture on a corny calendar. She could tell a desk had been in this spot-that her father had looked out at this same view-because the paint was faded above a certain line on the wall. Even though no one had lived in the place for over twenty years, it was as if there was still a shadow of him, his presence in this house. But that wasn’t all. Scrawled on the wall beside the window, above where his desktop must have been, there were phone numbers, written in ballpoint pen or pencil or Conte or charcoal-some numbers with names or initials, some without. Some retraced and darker than others-the hand busy while the ear listened. There was no phone line any longer.

It amazed Mimi how energetic her father’s writing was, even in such a mundane endeavor as scribbling down a phone number. But then, any mark making was serious to her father. There were also flurries of his very recognizable doodles. She stared at the wall-almost a piece of art itself. An art supplier in Ottawa, a framer in Richmond, a gallery in Montreal. There was even a 212 area code. She phoned it on her cell to see who it was. Caprice! So he had already made the connection with his present gallery way back then. It was a mini history-a connect-the-dots bio. The writing on the wall!