I Gave It All Back to My Sister, Even My Husband novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: W. Rowe

I read the whole page with an IV in my arm and my stitches pulling.

Nineteen paintings, sold over three years, to buyers I had never met.

The titles were mine.

Kitchen at Dusk. The Ferry Stairs. Helen's Garden in August.

I had painted every one of them in the studio Gavin later gutted.

"Willa told the committee she painted in the evenings," Simon said. "She told them she was shy about it."

"She has never held a brush."

"I know that now."

"How did she get them out of my studio?"

I answered myself before he could.

"I gave them to her."

Simon looked up.

"She asked for one at a time," I said. "For the foundation's charity auctions. She said Miriam wanted something local. I thought it was a kindness, a donation, my name on nothing."

"Six of them went to auction, and that money did reach the children's wing."

"Then where did the rest go?"

Simon turned the page. "The other thirteen did not go to auction. They went through the foundation's gallery partner on Pearl Street as private sales, and the checks were paid into an account opened in Willa's maiden name."

He put his finger under the total.

It was six hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

For a moment I couldn't speak.

I had maxed three credit cards for her dresses.

I had eaten dry pasta for a month to pay for her birthday, and she had been sitting on that account the whole time.

"The buyers believed she was the artist," Simon said. "A pretty, fragile young woman who painted through her illness. They paid extra for the story."

"The illness," I said.

"Yes."

Something small and quiet broke in my chest.

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