Chapter 19: Dad

We went to the long hall at the foot of the stairs.

Dominic stood in front of his mother's portrait with his hands in his pockets.

Jonas had dressed and left through the front door, on purpose, and nodded to the housekeeper like a guest.

"I'm going to do something," Dominic said. "I want you here for it."

"What?"

"Take her down."

He dragged a chair from the dining room.

He climbed onto it in his good loafers.

The frame was six feet high and gilded.

He got both arms around it and lifted, grunting, and it came away from the wall with a groan of old wire.

"Dad, let somebody."

"No."

"You'll hurt your back."

"I'll hurt my back," he agreed. "This one I carry myself."

He staggered down off the chair with the huge painting held against his chest.

Constance Garrow's cold face looked over his shoulder at me.

He turned her to face the wall and leaned her against the paneling.

Then he stood looking at the pale rectangle on the plaster where she had hung for thirty years.

"There's a dust line," he said. "I never noticed. Nobody ever moves it."

"The housekeeper did."

"She says it's not her place."

He laughed, wiped his face with his sleeve, and the laugh turned into something else.

I went to him.

He put his arms around me and his chin on my head.

"I read the eulogy standing in front of that," he said. "She looked down at me while I lied."

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