The Golden Hour Read online

  “That’s right. I almost forgot, this is your house, bought with your money. Money you’re making because somebody somewhere suddenly decided your art was worthy.”

  She was still smiling, but as I continued and she realized I was serious, her smile slipped away.

  “It’s changing you, Pill,” I said. “I know you don’t think it has, but it has. Having money makes you feel entitled to more money. It makes you greedy.”

  Her eyes widened. “I have never been anything but generous with you. With Av,” she said.

  “Well, thanks for your charity. I don’t need it anymore.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked, shaking her head. Reaching out for me again. “This isn’t about these stupid photos, is it?”

  “Of course it is. You can’t just sell her out,” I said. “You might be okay with that, but . . .”

  She stood up, stunned. Her voice deepened. “I’m not the one painting trees to match a goddamned couch,” she said.

  It felt like a blow to my chest.

  Pilar’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry, Wynnie. I didn’t mean that.”

  I shook my head, and my body trembled. “No,” I said, anger bubbling acidic. Vile. “You’re right. You are. I’m the prostitute.”

  And I thought of those women in the pictures. The girly-show girls, the vacant looks in their eyes as the men leered at them. As they stuffed dollar bills into their ratty G-strings. All that glitter and dust.

  Her eyes widened and filled with tears.

  Just as with Gus, I’d said something that couldn’t be taken back. It was a bell that could never be unrung. I thought about reaching out for her, about apologizing. But I was afraid she’d only recoil from my touch. And I didn’t think I could bear that.

  We stood staring at each other, neither of us knowing what to do. We’d never, ever had a fight before. Not once in almost fifteen years.

  “I think maybe I should go,” I said, but then was hit with the shattering reality that I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to Gus. I couldn’t go back to Haven.

  “No,” she said, her eyes wet. “I actually have a few things I need to do back in the city. It’s okay. I’ll go.”

  She stood up and grabbed her old thrift store coat, put on her designer boots.

  “That storm in Philly is heading east, they said. I should really get back before it hits. I’d hate to get stuck out here.” Her eyes were red, filled with tears.

  She gathered her suitcase and small overnight bag from the kitchen floor and opened the door to the blistering cold. I sat paralyzed at the kitchen table.

  Outside, the sky had clouded over again. It was disorienting. It wasn’t even noon, but it felt like twilight. As she started down the walkway with her suitcases, I stood up and clicked on the porch light, a stupid and futile gesture of thoughtfulness, of apology.

  I stood in the open doorway, watching her go and unable to bring myself to make her stop.

  She put her bags in the trunk and ducked back into the car. But then the door swung open again and she got out, holding a manila envelope. She walked back up to the house and handed it to me. She seemed suddenly angry now, now she’d had a moment for everything I’d said to register. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice.

  “I forgot, your mom wanted me to give this to you. It’s mail or something.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She took a deep breath and turned around again. And she was gone.

  It wasn’t until after her fog lights had disappeared down the road I felt the sob rising in my throat and let it take over my body.

  * * *

  Alternating between frustration and anger and disbelief, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. I put my mom’s envelope on the table and went to the case of wine and opened a bottle, pouring myself a healthy glassful before going to the dining room to look at my painting, at the paint chips and upholstery swatches laid out next to my palette. The blank canvas was leaning against the wall, like the homely girl at a middle school party. I felt sick. I drank the glass of wine in a few swallows and went back for more.

  I hoped maybe Pilar would just go cool off and come back. That we could fix this. Whatever this was. In all the years we’d known each other, we’d never had so much as a squabble.

  I sat down at the table and looked at the envelope from my mom. It was labeled WYN’S MAIL. I still got a lot of mail forwarded to her house, and she periodically gathered it, opened it, and stuffed it into an envelope. More often than not it was junk disguised as important pieces. “I thought it might be important,” she’d say when I shook my head at the offer to consolidate my debts, to refinance my mortgage, the announcements that I’d won contests for cruises and cash.

  I tore open the envelope and dumped its contents on the table. I expected my high school’s alumni newsletter, credit card offers, maybe someone trying to buy a house I didn’t own. But instead it was a thin envelope with no return address. My name and my parents’ address written in pencil, the handwriting childlike. For a moment, I thought of Avery, but this wasn’t her loopy, happy handwriting.

  I tore open the envelope and a sheet of notebook paper slipped out. Torn from a spiral notebook, the edges were ragged.

  You dont check ur e-mail so I thoght I better rite you a letter. The papers sayin my brother didn’t do it. But you know he did. Don’t get any stoopid ideas about makin up some other story. You been a good girl. But you do something stoopid and you can forget all about what we said.

  I felt completely hollowed out. Gutted. I read the letter again and again.

  Don’t get any stoopid ideas about making up some other story.

  Questioning

  “You like drawing pictures, I understand.”

  “Objection.”

  “Just trying to establish an idea of the kind of child she was. Is.”

  “I’ll allow, but make sure this is relevant. You may answer the question, Miss Davies.”

  “Yes. I like to draw.”

  “You have a vivid imagination?”

  “My teachers say I do.”

  “Objection. I don’t see the relevance here.”

  “Sustained.”

  “So, Robert Rousseau followed you into the woods.”

  “Robby.”

  It had rained. The air was still heavy with it, thick. It was spring, and the world was blooming. The grass on the playing fields was impossibly green. Electric almost. Like something from a dream. The haze that hung over the field distorted everything as well.

  “And in the woods he attacked you.”

  Jaw snapping, chewing his gum. Tongue clucking. “Come on, you pussy. Fuck her! You fucking coward.”

  “Raped you.”

  “Do it, you faggot. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  The Vanishing Point

  One of the first techniques any painter of realistic images must master is one of perspective. That is, how to render a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional canvas. A drawing must trick the eye into believing it sees that missing dimension, which is depth.

  The most simple perspective drawings (a set of train tracks disappearing into the distance, a road funneling into a pinprick on the horizon) have a one-point perspective. This is referred to as the vanishing point.

  If this day were a painting, it might be as simple as this. The world as expansive and open as a green, grassy playing field in spring, narrowing, narrowing to that tiny pinprick of light before the world ends.

  But of course, nothing about this is simple.

  Perspective is illusory in paintings, a dream, a trick of the eye.

  Stand here, look up at this fresco. See how it appears the angels are peering down at you through a hole in the roof? Your neck strains, your spine aches as your eyes work to render the figure flat.

  Trompe l’oeil, the forced perspective that makes you believe you can reach out and touch The Goldfinch, The Old Vio
lin. Trompe l’oeil literally means, “the deceiving eye.” One who views a trompe l’oeil painting is deceived, seeing an invented image as if it were real.

  Innocence

  I set the letter aside and shook out the next item from my mother’s envelope. It was a newspaper clipping dated December 27, the day after the protest. The front page showed a photo of a crowd gathered, holding candles dripping wax onto paper plate candleholders. A write-up about the vigil followed. Below this was a photo of Jan Bromberg. I scanned the article:

  Jan Bromberg, who worked for the New Hampshire Division of Children, Youth, & Families in 1996, has maintained Robert J. Rousseau was not a perpetrator, but rather a victim himself of domestic violence and sexual abuse at the hands of his father. Immediately following the arrest of Rousseau in 1996, the home where he resided with his father, brother, and teenage sister was searched and a stash of child pornography was found. The sister, upon questioning, revealed she had been sexually and physically abused by her father, Richard Rousseau Sr., since early childhood. Mr. Rousseau was arrested and charged with forty counts of child pornography as well as child sexual abuse. He served five years in the state penitentiary before being released. The teenage daughter, Roxanne, was removed from the home and taken into state custody, Richard Rousseau Sr.’s parental rights terminated. Ms. Bromberg, who visited the Rousseau house on several occasions in the years leading up to the crime, was working to have the two underage children removed from the home when the crime against Ms. Davies occurred.

  I felt my blood pooling in my knees, in my shoulders. I felt molten.

  I poured another glass of wine and began to pace up and down the kitchen floor. I needed to talk to someone, but whom? Gus didn’t know this story. Pilar didn’t know this story.

  Ms. Bromberg has visited Mr. Rousseau in the prison and says he maintains his innocence, insisting it was his brother, Richard (“Rick”) Rousseau Jr., who committed the crime. He claims his confession was coerced by the investigating officers.

  I finished the wine bottle and felt sick. I found a crusty loaf of sourdough sticking out from one of the grocery bags Pilar had brought. I ripped off a thick chunk and swallowed it almost whole, hoping it might sop up some of the alcohol. I turned on the faucet, ridiculously thinking a glass of water might help clear my head. I opened the cupboard for a glass and saw Avery’s bright red sippy cup sitting there and felt my knees grow weak again.

  My phone only had five percent juice, but suddenly I needed to talk to her. I just wanted to hear her voice.

  “Hey,” Gus said.

  “I was just calling to say hi to Av.” I knew immediately this was a mistake. My words felt thick, my tongue dry, and my head swimmy.

  “It’s nine o’clock, Wynnie. She’s been in bed for two hours.”

  “Oh,” I said stupidly.

  “Are you okay? You sound weird.”

  “I had some wine,” I said, and immediately regretted it.

  “Is Pill there?”

  The sob I’d been holding down suddenly rose to the surface, bobbing and then bursting.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my words now a derailed train. “I didn’t want any of this to happen, you know? You’re right,” I added, nodding. “About the trees. About the goddamned birches.”

  “Can you hold on?”

  I scowled. I was pouring my heart out and he wanted me to hold on?

  “Wyn?”

  I nodded again, but couldn’t speak because I knew I would cry.

  “Wyn, listen. I’m sorry. Mia is here to look at some of my work.”

  “At nine o’clock?” I said, feeling my stomach turn again. My legs were trembling.

  “I’ve really got to go,” he said. “Are you going to be okay? Maybe get some sleep. I can call you in the morning.”

  “Fine,” I mumbled and hung up the phone. It would have cut out on me anyway.

  I felt hopeless. Helpless. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I was completely alone. I’d driven every person who cared about me away. I had no husband, no parents, no best friend, and no child.

  I needed to get out of this house. All of a sudden, I felt like the woman who lived here must have felt, the walls closing in on her. I peered out the window at the dark sky. In the small beam of the porch light I could see it was beginning to snow. Below, the waves crashed angrily against the shore. Again and again, perpetual punishment. Pounding, beating.

  I opened the door and was met with a howling gust of freezing cold air. I’d need a sweater, a coat. I stumbled up the stairs to my room to find Gus’s sweater, to put on a pair of long johns. I banged my hip against the wooden footboard and winced. I walked past Avery’s room and felt my body tremble with another wave of sadness. I was wrecked.

  I clicked off the hallway light and headed to the stairs.

  I felt dizzy; the yellowing wallpaper in its repeating patterns of roses seemed to undulate like waves along the walls. I knew the moment I stepped down, I’d miscalculated the stairs’ depth.

  But it was too late.

  I was tumbling down the hard wooden steps, bones meeting wood, even as I reached out for the banister that wasn’t there to stop my fall.

  The snap sounded like a gunshot. Followed by so much pain, I thought maybe it had been gunfire rather than the sound of my own bone breaking.

  In the aftermath, I lay on the floor in silence. The wind had been knocked out of me.

  I stared up at the ceiling, waiting for my breath to return, tears rolling hotly down the sides of my face and into my ears.

  “Oh my God,” I said when I could breathe again.

  I somehow managed to use my left arm to push myself up to a sitting position, wincing at the excruciating pain that emanated from my elbow but radiated all the way down to my wrist. Nausea overtook me, and I turned my head, retching. I vomited, feeling sweat break out across my forehead. My eyes widened as I stared at what seemed to be a pool of blood where I had just thrown up. And then I realized: red wine, pomegranate seeds.

  I was too shaky to stand. My entire right side was consumed by pain now, my body pulsing, throbbing. What the hell was I supposed to do? I was all alone. I couldn’t drive anywhere; I wasn’t even sure I could get myself out the door. And even if I could, where on earth would I go? It was nine o’clock on New Year’s Day. The ferry was on a holiday schedule, Pilar had likely caught the last ferry off.

  I looked up and saw my phone on the table.

  I attempted to cradle my right arm with my left one, cupping my damaged right elbow with my left hand as I rose to kneeling, then standing. The pain made me nearly pass out.

  I wondered whom to call. 911? There were no clinics, no hospitals here on the island. I highly doubted my insurance would cover the cost of getting me to a Portland hospital. Should I call Gus? Mia was with him. Would he even answer? And what would that mean if he didn’t? Pilar. God, Pilar.

  I pressed the HOME button on my phone. Dead. And the charger was back upstairs.

  What was I going to do?

  Wait. Seamus was home. At least he had been earlier. I didn’t know what he could do, but I did know I couldn’t stay here in the house overnight. Not alone. Not in so much pain.

  I stood up and shuffled across the kitchen floor, feeling all of the other places in my body that had taken the blows of the fall. My head was pounding, but I didn’t know if it was the tumble or the wine. I certainly wasn’t drunk anymore. I was like a soda can knocked to the floor, all the fizz zapped out of me.

  It was dark outside, the sky completely opaque. I opened the utility drawer and grabbed a flashlight. I slipped on my Ugg boots but couldn’t put on my coat. It was okay, I could do this. He was right next door.

  Outside, snow was falling from the sky but never reaching the ground. It was at the mercy of the wind, which was howling. Angry. I cried out as the door banged shut behind me, startling me. I made my way slowly down the steps and shuddered when another gust of wind ripped across the yard and blasted into me. M
y ears rang and ached.

  I couldn’t cradle my damaged arm with my other hand, because I needed to hold the flashlight to see anything beyond the few feet ahead of me. I walked to the edge of the bluff and shined my weak beam of light down the rocks; there was no way I was going to make it down there.

  I’d have to take the path through the trees.

  I made my way around the side of the house, each step jarring my body into new convulsions of pain. I closed my eyes, felt sick. The nausea washed over me, but the cold, biting wind cut through it. In a strange way, it urged me on.

  At the edge of the forest, I felt my knees weaken.

  Go, I thought. You have no choice. Just go.

  The wind rippled through the branches, howled. Warned.

  You’re already hurt. Nothing is going to hurt you more than you already are.

  And one excruciating step after another, I made my way to the path. The one that would lead me to the other side. I was all alone. And terrified.

  Inquiry

  “Please describe what Robby did to you in the woods. It’s okay. Take your time.”

  He shoved me, and it was just like the time I’d been on the swing and he’d pushed me to the ground. He stole my breath, my words. I landed facedown, felt and heard the crunch of the cold ground against my cheek. And this time there was no teacher with a shrill whistle around her neck to stop him, to make him apologize.

  “Come on, you pussy,” his brother said. I could see his feet from where I lay, hear him smacking his gum. “Fuck her. You know you want to.”

  Robby’s hands were on my shoulders now, rolling me over, but I could see him glancing back to his brother, waiting for directions. If this were a movie, this shot might be from my perspective, his face surrounded in the golden glow of springtime sunlight. We would see the insinuation of violence, the suggestion of it. Maybe hear the sound of his zipper, of birdsong, before the fade to black.