The Nesting Dolls

CHAPTER 11

Taylor was not a fan of chicken soup. After she and Declan left to go to our favourite neighbourhood restaurant, the Chimney, for pizza, I took a tray to the bedroom and Zack and I had dinner for two. He finished his soup – a good sign – but refused seconds, and I didn’t push it.

I cleaned up our dishes and when I came back, Zack was on his BlackBerry. I went out in the hall and made a call of my own. Nadine was touchingly grateful when I offered to pick her up at the airport and introduce her to Mieka, who, as far as any of us knew, was the person who’d spent the most time with Abby in the days immediately before her death. I hung up feeling relieved that I’d made the effort. When I came into our bedroom and told Zack, he was less sanguine. “There are two sides to this case, Ms. Shreve,” he said, “and you’re stepping over the line.”

“It’s a very small step,” I said. “I’m simply extending the same courtesy to Nadine that we’d extend to anyone coming to Regina.”

“Maybe,” Zack said, “but I’m guessing Darryl Colby isn’t going to be any happier about this female bonding than I am.”

“That’s a problem for tomorrow,” I said. “So let’s leave it alone.”

“Fair enough,” Zack said, “because we have enough going on tonight. I called Dee. She’s coming over to watch Myra’s home movies.”

“Zack, how much are you telling Delia about the police investigation?”

“The bare minimum,” Zack said. “Dee doesn’t need to hear the details. Why do you ask?”

“Debbie Haczkewicz came by this afternoon while you were sleeping. I thought you might want to hear what she told me before Delia arrived.”

“That’s probably best,” he said. “So how’s Debbie?”

“Tired. Frustrated. Worried.”

“Unsolved homicide cases are tough on cops,” Zack said. “The last time we talked, Debbie told me that all they’ve nailed down is the ‘window’ of time in which the attack took place. Abby’s car was not in the parking lot at A-1 when the power went off, but it was there when the power was restored.”

“That’s a pretty small window,” I said. “The power went off just before six and came back on at eight-thirty.”

“Apparently, the power downtown wasn’t restored till after eleven,” Zack said, “and even when it came on, visibility was lousy because of the blizzard. Debbie assigned some poor rookie to go through the A-1 security tape frame by frame, and he spotted Abby’s car in the first frame after the power came back on.”

“So no pictures of the man who killed Abby leaving the scene?”

“Nope. Debbie has uniformed officers going door to door to see if anyone heard anything, but in that area houses are few and far between and the people who live in them are not overly fond of cops.” Zack looked hard at me. “Your attention seems to have drifted,” he said.

“Not at all,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out how everything that happened to Abby could have taken place within five hours.”

Zack winced. “Is your back hurting?” I said.

He tried a smile but all he managed was a grimace. “Nothing a change in position won’t fix,” he said. “Could you give me a hand?” I put my arm around him and lowered him so he was lying on his side, facing me. I placed a pillow behind his back for support.

“Thanks,” he said. “Does any of this make sense to you, Jo? A smart woman, who happens to be a lesbian, comes to a city where she’s a stranger, gives away her child, and then goes off with a man whom she instantly trusts?”

“Debbie has a theory that Abby sought out a professional to help her through the trauma of giving up Jacob. She thinks it wasn’t the man, himself, whom Abby trusted. She thinks it was his profession.”

“So we know he wasn’t a lawyer,” Zack said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Nothing like a lawyer joke to ease tensions,” I said.

“You almost laughed,” Zack said. “Anyway, if lawyers are out, what’s left?”

“Doctors and clergy, and Abby’s Catholic, so I guess we can assume doctors and priests.”

“There are bad apples in every profession,” Zack said. “So Abby leaves Luther College, meets up with a doctor or a priest, goes somewhere with him, he attacks and kills her, pulls her down a flight of stairs, drags her through the snow to her car, drives to A-1, and gets away. All within five hours. You’re right. It doesn’t add up.”

“Are you going to tell Delia?”

“Nope. I think movie night might be enough misery for my partner.” Zack looked at his watch. “Dee won’t be here for another three-quarters of an hour. She wanted to give Jacob his bath. Shall we have a preview?”

I fetched Myra’s package and we watched the DVD she’d had made from the movies shot the year Delia clerked for Theo. Most of the footage was of Theo thinking aloud about decisions he was about to make. Dry stuff, but Myra knew how to bring her husband’s legal ponderings to life by placing him in compelling settings: beside a rushing river on a soft green spring day; atop a ski slope in the Laurentians; strolling alone along a shadowy deserted corridor in the Supreme Court.

“Always alone,” Zack intoned theatrically, “except, of course, for his ever-present wife with her ever-present camera. Boy, talk about ego. I can’t imagine you taking pictures of me wrestling with my conscience.”

“The temptation’s there,” I said. “A lot of lawyers in this town would pay serious money to see if you had a conscience.”

Zack laughed, which of course set off another coughing attack. When it was through, he closed his eyes. “Watching this crap is getting us nowhere,” he said. “Myra obviously didn’t send over the X-rated version. Let’s turn it off, and watch the rest when Delia comes.”

“Wait,” I said. “Here comes the skating.”

There was an establishing shot of the frozen Rideau Canal. Then the camera zoomed in on a man and woman skating. He was tall and confident of his prowess; she was petite and moved tentatively. They weren’t touching, but they moved in perfect harmony, and they turned and began to skate towards the camera at precisely the same moment. “Hold on,” I said.

As the man and woman locked eyes, the person behind the camera froze the shot. Even twenty-seven years later, the heat between the lovers was palpable.

We watched to the end of the sequence. As Theo delivered his familiar push-glide speech, Delia’s eyes never left his face.

Zack clicked off the DVD. “So now we know,” he said.

“It was a long time ago,” I said. “By now, it’s probably ancient history for both of them.”

“I’m not sure it is for Dee,” Zack said. “On that fated day when I had to decide between buying you a toothbrush or getting a new Jaguar, I went to Delia for advice. To be honest, the reason I chose her was because I was certain she’d tell me I should bid you sayonara, but she surprised me. She told me I should go back to you. She said that otherwise, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering.”

“And you think that’s what happened to Delia?”

“I do. She and Noah were married the week after she came back from Ottawa. The marriage came out of the blue. Everyone was shocked, and nobody was more shocked than Noah. I was best man at their wedding. Noah looked like a guy who’d won the big prize in a lottery he didn’t know he’d bought a ticket for.”

“And you think Delia’s been wondering ever since?”

“I guess we’re about to find that out.”

Before Delia arrived, I gave Zack a sponge bath, helped him into fresh pyjamas, changed the sheets, tucked the prescription drugs out of sight, then began removing some of the flowers that had been delivered.

“You don’t have to do that,” Zack said.

“You said the place looked like Walmart.”

“It was just an observation,” he said. “Come sit next to me for a minute.”

I went over, lay on the bed beside him, and slipped my hand under his pyjama top onto his chest.

“This is more than I asked for,” Zack said.

“And it’s only the beginning,” I said.

For an evening designed to elicit a revelation, Delia’s visit was surprisingly without fireworks. When I showed her into our room, she went straight to Zack and embraced him. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently.

He patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Dee. It’ll work out.”

“I hope so,” she said. She glanced around the room. I’d left the curtains open so we could see the night sky. The snow outside the window was blue-white, and on the low table in front of the window the three copper pots with their deep red poinsettias glowed. The room was very quiet. “It’s so peaceful here,” Delia said.

She was all in black, her face was pale and drawn, and as she pulled a chair close to the bed, she moved with her characteristic taut intensity. “Might as well get this over with,” she said.

“You don’t have to watch the movies, Dee,” Zack said.

Delia picked up the remote. “I’ve ducked this long enough,” she said, and she hit power.

I’d taken the DVD back to the beginning. As Theo came on screen looking as he had twenty-seven years ago, Delia’s face grew soft.

Zack had been watching his partner, but he dropped his eyes at her show of emotion. Then his eyes shifted to the screen.

We watched in silence till the sequence on the canal was over.

“That’s it,” I said.

“I thought he was the sun and the moon and the stars,” Delia said. “I was very young.” Her husky voice broke in its strangely adolescent-boy way.

“Dee, the point of showing you the movie wasn’t to make you miserable,” Zack said. “It was to find out everything we could about the circumstances surrounding Abby Michaels’s birth.”

Delia shrugged her slender shoulders. “It’s the old sad story. I fell in love with Theo. He said he loved me. I thought he’d leave his wife. He said he wanted to be with me, but that Myra had invested everything in him, and I had my life ahead of me. Case closed.”

“Did you tell him about the baby?” I asked.

Delia shook her head. “No. Eventually, of course, he must have realized I was pregnant, but he never mentioned it, and neither did I.”

“He never asked if the baby was his?” I said. “I would have thought… ”

“To be fair, by the time news of my pregnancy made the rounds in the Supreme Court Building, Theo had every reason to believe the baby wasn’t his.”

“What happened?” I said.

“Someone started a rumour that I’d been screwing pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down. A kind soul told me she’d been at a drinking party where they narrowed the list of potential fathers down to five and everybody voted.”

“Jesus,” Zack said.

“Welcome to the world of women,” I said, and Delia shot me a grateful glance.

“Anyway,” she said, “I appeared before the Court many times over the years, but, quite correctly, there was no acknowledgement from Theo that he knew me.”

“He never made any attempt at a personal connection?” Zack asked.

“No, nor did I. Come on, Zack, you know the rules. Anything like that would have been highly unethical and it might have compromised a client, so Theo and I soldiered on, protected by the anonymity of our robes: just another justice; just another barrister. And it would have continued that way if it hadn’t been for Abby’s letter.”

“But you did tell Theo that Abby was his daughter?” Zack said.

“I took the coward’s way out,” Delia said. “I wrote to him. I knew he’d retired suddenly and moved back here. He was no longer a judge, so that particular barrier to communication had been removed, but to be frank I didn’t want to face him. I didn’t know how he’d react. Anyway, I sent him a letter setting out the facts. I relayed Abby’s request and told him that he could do as he wished, but that I thought it was fair to convey the medical information his biological daughter requested, and I believed her when she said she had no wish to have further contact with either of us.”

“Did you get a response?” Zack said.

“I did. One line typed on monogrammed stationery. ‘The matter has been taken care of,’ and then Theo’s initals, ‘T.N.B.’ ”

“Were the initials typed or handwritten?” Zack asked.

“Handwritten,” Delia said. “I should have just let it go, but the ambiguity was unsettling. I decided to arrange a face-to-face meeting. I wrote a note addressed to Theo and Myra. I said I understood they had moved back to Regina and that Noah and I were having a gathering on December 5. There would be people there whom they would find congenial, and we’d be delighted if they could join us. I gave them my contact information, and I received an e-mail accepting the invitation.”

“Was the e-mail from Theo or Myra?” Zack asked.

“It was signed ‘Theo and Myra,’ which of course means nothing. Noah always signs both our names when he responds to invitations. The Brokaws’ note was cordial but it was just the usual. There was certainly no mention of Theo’s health problems.” Delia stood and walked over to the window. “And here’s something that puzzles me. Doesn’t Alzheimer’s take time to develop? After our party I had calls from lawyers who’d appeared before the Court last spring, and according to them, Theo was fine. Nobody, including me, had ever heard of a case where the disease moved that quickly.”

“It isn’t Alzheimer’s,” I said. “Theo had a fall. He was shingling their cottage roof last summer, and he fell. He suffered a traumatic brain injury that’s left him in a state similar to advanced Alzheimer’s.”

Delia bit her lip. “Just one false step, and an entire life changes.” Her eyes moved to me. “How do you know all this?”

“NationTV is considering a show about the Supreme Court. It would be part of a series they’re doing explaining the institutions that affect our lives. When I heard Theo was retiring here, I thought he’d be a good fit, and I e-mailed him. Myra responded for him, but I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed he was busy and she handled his correspondence.”

“I sent my letter towards the end of November,” Delia said. “Myra would have handled it, too.”

“Presumably,” I said.

“And given Theo’s state, she would have been the one to decide whether or not to get in touch with Abby.”

I nodded.

“And we’ll never know whether they did.” Delia’s eyes dropped. “There’s so much we’ll never know.”

She went to Zack. “You look as if you’ve had enough,” she said. “I know I have.” She bent and kissed his forehead. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

I walked her to the door. She put on her boots and jacket and draped around her neck the scarf that she’d knit when she was trying to quit smoking. The scarf trailed to her knee on one side. “I feel so guilty about this, Joanne.”

“Zack’s flu was probably incubating before he went to Port Hope.”

She tried a smile. “But you won’t deny that the trip made a bad situation worse. I seem to have developed a reverse Midas touch. I’m losing confidence in my decisions, and that’s always fatal.”

“And futile to dwell on,” I said. “There’s no going back. Given the circumstances at the time, we do the best we can.”

“I still believe that giving Abby up was best for her. She had a good life. I don’t know why everything fell apart.” Delia’s eyes filled with tears. “The first time I saw my daughter’s face was in that parking lot. The men who found her had left the door open. I got in. It was so cold. The key was in the ignition, so I turned on the heat. After she was born, I told them I didn’t want to see her, and when I got in the car with her, I knew it was my last chance. It was like looking in a mirror. I held her hand and talked to her. I knew she was dead, but I kept on talking. I promised her I would make things right.” Delia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I usually can, you know.”

Pale, tense, her slight body seemingly dragged to one side by the weight of her scarf, Delia was a forlorn figure. “I’ve always known how to cut my losses and move along, but I can’t forget her,” she said. “Suddenly, I can’t forget anything.”

I didn’t relay any of Delia’s conversation to Zack that night, but I slept fitfully, haunted by Delia’s account of sitting with her dead daughter, concerned about my husband’s laboured breathing and the appearance of his pressure wound, and wondering whether I’d made a grave error by offering to pick Nadine up at the airport. In the small hours I went down to my office, turned on my laptop, and checked out the appearance of pressure wounds that were non-threatening and those that were dangerous. I couldn’t tell the difference.

The next morning, for one of the few times in my life, I had to drag myself out of bed. It was an effort to complete my morning run with the dogs. When I got back to the house, all I wanted to do was sleep, but real life had its demands, and its unsettling surprises.

Nadine called when I was making the porridge. The fact that she was calling on her cell while she waited in line at Pearson International in Toronto might have accounted for her curtness, but the chill in her voice was undeniable.

“I’ve just been speaking to my lawyer in Regina,” she said. “He’s going to pick me up at the airport. Thank you for your offer, but Mr. Colby feels it would be ill-advised for you and me to spend time together.”

I tried to defuse the situation. “I understand,” I said. “Mr. Shreve feels exactly the same way.”

“Well, Mr. Shreve is certainly the master of the game,” Nadine said, and she hung up.

Henry Chan came by just as the porridge was ready. “That looks good,” he said.

“Would you like some?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got appointments starting in half an hour. I just thought I’d check on my poker partner. How’s he doing?”

“No worse, but no better. He still has a fever. That pressure sore we were concerned about still looks angry. And he’s dealing with a case that’s really gnawing at him.”

Henry shrugged off his coat and went to the sink to wash his hands. “I can’t believe that a firm the size of Falconer Shreve doesn’t have somebody who could at least assist Zack with his case.”

“It’s not that. The case involves one of the partners, and they want it kept confidential.”

“I’ll talk to Zack about priorities if you want.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “If he wasn’t in charge of this case, he’d be fretting about it.”

“If that’s what you’ve both decided… ”

“We didn’t both decide,” I said. “Zack did.”

Henry looked at me closely. “And you’re unhappy.”

“I did a little Internet reading last night.”

Henry’s chuckle was dry. “That would make anybody unhappy,” he said.

“The article I read was about the danger of pressure sores. The writers focused on Christopher Reeve’s case. He had the best possible medical care, but he had a pressure sore that became infected; the infection became systemic; he had a heart attack, went into a coma, and died. There was nothing anyone could do. He was fifty-two years old.”

“I won’t lie to you,” Henry said. “Pressure sores are always a concern.”

“And I’m not competent to judge whether what I’m looking at on my husband’s back is just an abrasion or something serious. I’m out of my depth here, Henry, and I’m scared.”

“We could put Zack in the hospital till this clears up.”

“That has to be the last resort,” I said. “Zack hates hospitals. He spent so much time in them when he was a kid. He loves our home. I know he’ll get well faster here.”

“How would you feel about getting a private nurse to come in to check once a day – keep an eye on the wound and give you a hand getting Zack in and out of the shower?”

“I would feel immensely relieved,” I said.

“I’ll get Gina to call Nightingale Nursing. They’re expensive but they’re good.”

“I don’t care how much it costs,” I said. “I just want to be sure that nothing slips by me.” Willie leaned heavily against my leg. “Henry, can you make sure the nurse is comfortable with dogs? Pantera is very protective of Zack.”

Henry finished drying his hands on a paper towel. “I’ve noticed,” he said.

After Henry left, I brought Zack’s breakfast in and sat down with him while he made a heroic effort to eat what he clearly didn’t feel like eating.

Finally, I took away the tray. “Can I get you something else?” I said.

“Do you know what I’d really like?”

“Name it. Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon? Steak tartare? Crepes Suzette?”

Zack made a face. “All of the above, but not today. Today, what I’d like is for you to get into bed with me. I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s get some sleep.”

I took off my jeans and shirt and slipped in beside my husband. He was very hot, but I was cold. I curled into him. “Is this okay?” I said.

“God, yes,” he said. “You are so soft and so cool… ”

I moved closer. “Zack, how would you feel about -”

He began to snore.

I lay there feeling his heat, listening to the familiar and reassuring buzz of his breathing. At one point he moved and groaned. The pressure wound was sensitive, and if his position wasn’t right, it was painful.

I adjusted the pillows behind his back and then put my arms around him. “You are the love of my life,” I said. “Don’t leave me.” I waited for a response, and when none was forthcoming, I too fell asleep.

Two hours later, I awoke. Zack was staring down at me. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to suppress a cough?”

“Why did you suppress it?”

“You were so peaceful. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I stretched my arms. “Well, thanks. Because I slept like the proverbial log, and I feel about a hundred times better than I did before Henry came. How about you?”

“I woke up after a while and watched you sleep – almost as good as the real thing. Till this bug goes away, let’s do this every day.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

My husband drew me closer. “Neither am I, Ms. Shreve,” he said. “Count on it.”

I made Zack tea, showered, ate a crumpet dripping with butter over the sink, and finally felt ready to start the day. There was a note from Taylor on the kitchen table. She was in her studio working if we needed her. I glimpsed out the window, saw the light, and smiled. I checked my messages. Most of them were from people concerned about Zack’s health, but Myra Brokaw’s concern was not for my husband’s well-being but her husband’s legacy. She asked me to call her as soon as I’d “reviewed” her films of Theo, so we could discuss our next step.

It wasn’t exactly Paul on the road to Damascus, but it was insight enough for me. Somewhere amidst the sturm und drang of the past days, it seemed we had all forgotten that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. Myra had the answers to questions that were plaguing us. Myra had invited me over. I would accept her invitation and ask the questions.

When I got back to our bedroom, Zack was lying on his side thumbing his BlackBerry.

“Anything spectacular going on?” I asked.

“Lots,” he said. “I guess the most pressing item is that Darryl Colby wants to see me.”

“He’ll have to come here,” I said.

“I hate the idea of that creep coming into our home.”

“It’s Christmas. We’ll be hospitable. I’ll make cocoa and sugar cookies, and you can play ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’ on the piano and ask him to sing along.”

Zack shuddered. “Jesus, there’s an image that’ll ruin my morning. But I do have to meet with Darryl. I don’t like him skulking around in the shadows.”

“Can you put it off till tomorrow? Give yourself a day to get better.”

“No. I have to move on this.”

“Tell Darryl it’ll be a ten-minute meeting,” I said. I sat on the bed. “I’ve decided to move on something too,” I said. “Myra called. I think she’s hoping against hope that her home movies will have sealed the deal with NationTV. I’m going to pay her a visit.”

“You going to let her down easily?” As Zack shifted his body, the expression on his face was pained. I reached over and adjusted the pillows behind his back. “Better?”

He nodded.

“To answer your question, yes, I’m going to let Myra down easily. I’m also going to ask her if she read Delia’s letter, if she got in touch with Abby, and if Abby got in touch with her. Then I’m going to ask her how much Theo understands about the situation and suggest that she and Theo support the Wainbergs’ attempt to get custody of Jacob.”

Zack rolled his eyes. “What have you been smoking? Even I wouldn’t try to pull that one off.”

“I’m tired of letting this dominate our lives,” I said.

“So am I,” he said. “But storming the Brokaws’ bastion seems out of character for you.”

“Blame osmosis,” I said. “When we were in bed together, all that body heat you were generating moved into me and made me a warrior.”

He gave me a weak smile. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

“That’s my plan. And one more thing. Henry’s going to send over a nurse to give us a hand for about an hour a day. I could use help getting you in and out of the shower. You’re a sexy guy, but you’re not a little guy. More seriously, I worry that I’m looking at that pressure sore through the eyes of hope. We can’t afford to have me misread the signs.”

“No,” Zack said. “We can’t. When’s the nurse starting?”

“Today, I hope.” I stroked his cheek. “I thought you’d fight me tooth and nail on this.”

“Nope. When you crawled into bed with me this morning, you said that I was the love of your life and you didn’t want me to leave. That goes both ways, Ms. Shreve.”

“If you heard me, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because your words unmanned me,” he said. “Let’s do whatever it takes.”

I walked through the snow to Taylor’s studio. When I knocked, she invited me in – a sign that her work was going well. She was wearing ripped jeans, an old sweatshirt, and a pair of paint-spattered heavy wool socks. Her face shone with joy – a sign that she’d broken through the wall separating her from the art she wanted to make.

She held out her hand. “Come look,” she said, and stepped aside so I could see her canvas. It was a self-portrait of her making art. She was standing at an angle to her easel. As she gazed critically at the work in progress, her head was tilted to one side and her expression was rapt. She wasn’t smiling, but there was a stillness in her features that suggested that she was content with what she saw. Everything about the portrait, from the curve of her body to the way she held her brush, reminded me of Sally, but it wasn’t just the subject matter that moved me; in some way I couldn’t articulate, I knew that this piece represented a leap in Taylor’s development as an artist. I gazed at it silently for a while.

Taylor’s eyes searched my face. “Well?”

“It’s the best work you’ve done.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Her voice was unsure. The painting on the canvas was bold and assured, the creation of a mature artist, but Taylor was still fourteen years old, and she needed my approval.

I put my arm around her shoulder. “I was just overwhelmed – with how far you’ve come in your work. And everything about the painting reminds me of your mother – the hair is different, of course, but the expression on your face, even the way you hold your body, is the same. She had a certain stance when she was assessing her work. There’s no way you could know that.” I pointed towards the canvas. “But there it is.”

Taylor’s body tensed and when she spoke her voice was small and furious. “Jo, I am not my mother.”

“You’ve always liked talking about her. You told me once it was a way of not losing her.”

Taylor turned and went back to her canvas. The silence in the studio hung between us, heavy as the odour of paint in the air. When, finally, she spoke, Taylor didn’t face me. “You don’t know what it’s like. When I Google my mother, every article and blog talks about how dazzling and brave she was as a painter, and how she wasn’t afraid to live her life fully. No matter how good I am, people are going to measure me against her, and I’m just this boring kid. Declan says maybe I should change my last name to Shreve, then everyone will just say that for a lawyer’s daughter, I’m a pretty good visual artist.”

“Declan’s a good friend.”

Taylor dabbed her brush in a pot of paint and stared at her canvas. “He’s more than that,” she said.

“In what way?” I tried to sound cool and objective. I didn’t make it.

Taylor turned away from her canvas with such fury that the paint on her brush flew off and spattered on my hand. “I was going to say that he’s the only person who understands what I’m going through. It isn’t always about sex, Jo. I’m not a skank like my mother.”

“Taylor, your mother wasn’t a skank. She was a complex human being who was just beginning to discover her own worth when she died.”

I had delivered the eulogy at Sally’s funeral. The chapel was full, but I was the only one present whose relationship with Sally went beyond the romantic or the professional. The eulogy I wrote had been carefully crafted to say all the right things without acknowledging the terrible truths at the heart of Sally’s life. Ten years later as I stood watching her daughter’s body trembling, I knew that I had finally found the words I should have used on that grey February day. Sally’s life wasn’t complete. That was the tragedy. She had just begun to discover her worth when her life ended.

I walked over to Taylor’s painting and looked at it carefully. “You’ve only just begun. You don’t have to measure yourself against anyone. You’re that good.” When I put my arm around my daughter, the paint that had spattered from her brush onto my hand dripped onto her shirt. “Sorry,” I said. “I wrecked your shirt.”

The shirt was already covered in paint. “It’s okay,” she said. “I have ten other shirts just like this one.”

We both laughed, and then we moved so we could look more closely at the self-portrait. There was violence in the lines and the colours suggested turbulence in the relationship between artist and medium. “You’re not where you want to be yet, are you?” I said.

She sighed heavily. “No. Not even close.”

“But closer,” I said. “Taylor, this really is the strongest work you’ve ever done. And you have something your mother never had. Time. You have time to get where you need to go. Find out who you are, and I have a feeling the rest will come.”