I Gave It All Back to My Sister, Even My Husband novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Green Paint

Gavin took me to the hospital chapel because it was the only door in the corridor that locked.

It was a narrow room with six wooden pews and a window of colored glass.

He stood at the front with his back to me and one hand pressed on the altar rail.

I waited.

Nothing in my life had ever taken this long.

"Four years ago," he said at last, "the Aldercott Foundation sponsored a student show at a small gallery on Pearl Street."

"I remember," I said.

"I went because Simon couldn't. I had forty minutes. I stayed three hours."

I said nothing.

"There was a canvas at the back, a kitchen window with the light coming through. Green on the glass, green on the table, green all over the room."

I closed my eyes.

"Green Hour," I said.

"I stood in front of it so long that the gallery girl brought me a chair."

"That was my grandmother's kitchen."

"I know," Gavin said. "She told me."

He turned.

His face was gray, and he looked as if he'd been struck.

"She was standing next to it, in a brown jacket with the cuff stained green. I asked her whether she'd painted it. She said yes."

"Who said yes?"

"Your sister."

The word dropped between us.

"She said she'd done them all," he said. "She said she painted in her mother's garage after dark, because it was the only place with light. She told me this canvas was her grandmother's kitchen."

"It was mine."

"She was wearing the paint on her wrist."

"It was my jacket," I said.

My voice sounded strange to me.

"I'd lent it to her. I was at the bank that evening, begging for an extension on three credit cards I'd maxed buying her dresses. I'd asked her to stand by my paintings and say thank you to anyone who came. She said it would be a pleasure."

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