The Painting

#80 Paint and Canvas Part 2 - Peint Agus Chanbhas Cuid 2

I painted for the next week non stop. I even ate outside joined by Lyle and Frankie who took to playing poker on a card table Lyle brought from the living room. Lyle was zero for thirty by my count but she insisted that Frankie was counting cards and therefore she should have a handicap.

My paintings were all the same. I began at sunrise in the spot at the edge of the patio exactly in the middle of the path leading down to the dock. The first was awful. The colors bled into each other with no discernable horizon line and a murky blue blob in the center. My second and third weren't much better. It wasn't until I got to the fourth that I was able to practice intentional blending and keep the colors from running together at their own will.

At night when the natural light left I worked pulled out a canvas that I kept turned face down so that it couldn't be seen it during the day. I didn't want to look at it – or rather it looking at me.

The background was easy, but when I came to the foreground it took me hours to finish the smallest detail. I outlined the shape of my head loosely from memory. My own portrait. I came to the conclusion one night after Lyle and I stayed up late into the night talking.

"I'm not sure who I am anymore," I confessed. "I've always been looking for my mother, and now that I've found her – in some form or another – I'm not sure what to do."

"Maybe it's time you find yourself." Lyle murmured.

She hadn't meant it as literally – this wasn't a scavenger hunt with meticulously hidden pieces. But as her advice churned over in my head I knew what I needed to do – what I'd always done. I applied my craft so easily to others, but never had I turned it on myself.

In hopes of capturing my essence I picked up a brush.

I'd finished my nose and ears the night before and gone back to my seventh attempt on Thursday morning when Frankie walked out onto the patio. Lyle was already sitting with me reading a book and talking about going for a swim later. The water had been too cold as of late but with the sun shining over head the temperature jumped almost ten degrees and we were both sweating.

"Look." Frankie slapped something down on Lyle's lap and I set down my palate and brush to join them.

X-Enterprises Exec. Indicted for Fraud & Bribery

The words were printed in bold letters on the front page of the city newspaper.

My heart caught in my throat. "What – what does this mean?"

"It means Monroe is going on trial."

"I know what it means!" My words came off a little more agitated than I wanted but I couldn't help it. "What about the video?" I snatched the paper off of Lyle's lap and scanned the article. There was no mention of my mother's murder, not even a hint to the video thousands of people, including the police witnessed.

The article claimed Monroe had stole over fifteen million dollars from the company since he began working there twenty seven years ago.

"Frankie I thought you said the department wouldn't let up on that crooked cop?"

I threw the paper down and paced back and forth on the patio.

"Haven't heard anything yet. These sort of things take time." He scratched his head.

"Why?" I stopped pacing and threw my arms out in disgust. "You said yourself going through his files would take weeks. How did they find enough evidence in a week? Didn't they have to get a subpoena to access his files? That takes time right? They wouldn't be able to find all that unless-" I was talking more to myself now, trying to piece together a fuzzy picture. Something wasn't adding up.

"Monroe gave them access. He let the police find his fraudulent statements so they would arrest him on that charge."

"White collar prison is a lot kinder than blue collar." Frankie added but I shook my head.

"Or?" Lyle acknowledged my hesitation to latch on to Frankie's answer.

"Or, he's buying himself some time. Monroe is trying to aim the police's focus at his money to keep it away from everything else."

Excited by my theory Frankie jumped forward with his finger in the air. "He stands to lose more if he goes away on murder."

I nodded. "If his lawyers are as good as we think they are, Monroe could get out on good behavior."

"What about the bribery?" Lyle interjected as she rose from her seat to stand between us. "Why would he steer them towards the break in at Beth & Ivy's? Wouldn't that cast more suspicion on his relationship to you?"

"The police forced his hand. He knew how the department takes to one of their own going rogue and realized it was only a matter of time before they'd get the lousy cop to crack. If he fessed up now there'd be less motivation to keep digging."

She crossed her hands over her chest and tilted her head back mulling over my explanation. "Shit." She finally exhaled.

My mind raced a mile a minute as I soaked in the realization I'd just spoken into the soft summer breeze. My mother's murder was as cold as cases come. Mentally I tallied the evidence. Mo Soileireacht would surely be thrown out having no hand writing sample to compare to and the painting itself held no significance without the journal. Even the photograph from my mother's album showing Monroe's lucky cufflink was hardly damming. It could easily be argued that he was not the only man in Maine who owned a cufflink bearing an old crest.

The only solid physical evidence was me.

My mother's body was never found. I flashed back to the night I met with Monroe as I stood with my back to the pond. There I had asked him point blank where her body was but his only answer was a gunshot.

Up until that point I never thought about where my mother may be buried. The question appeared on my lips without giving me time to fully digest it when I confronted Monroe. I suppose it was because of the sinking feeling in my stomach every time I used present tense while speaking about her. I continued to hold out hope.

It was simpler to imagine her sleeping peacefully, as if she were Snow White in the middle of the forest rather than six feet under in an unmarked grave.

But now I'd opened the box, my curiosity mixed with pain slipped under the crack in the lid and pried it open. Mo Soileireacht was my first thought. It was where my mother intended on meeting Monroe. But did they ever make it there? If he picked her up could he have killed her in his car? Even if they did that didn't mean that he waited until she was in the clearing. The Bullfrog Country Club spread across over thirty acres.

She could be anywhere on the land, in the city or even in Maine.

My hands latched onto my locket. "I don't even know where she is." A paralyzing jolt ran up my neck as my entire body caved into itself. Lyle grabbed me before I fell to the ground and wove her arms under my own to bring me to sit on the patio chair.

I could think of one thing at the top of Monroe's to do list when he got out.

All this time I'd been chasing after my motherwith the idea that I was doing it for her. For her memory, I couldn't stand theidea of my own mother fading into the background with no one to remember whather favorite color was or how she described a spring morning after the rain. Intime I found that my quest to discover the mother I never knew was more selfishthan I originally allowed myself to believe. I wanted to know my mother, notjust so that she wouldn't be forgotten, but because I thought in finding her Iwould find a piece of myself. I glanced down at my portrait. And now, more thanever, my own life was dependent on finding my mother.        

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