When We Meet Again (2 page)

Even before I finished taking off the protective wrapping, I knew that what I was holding wasn’t a poster. The paper was thick and textured, and as I peeled back the thin piece of parchment covering it, a small, sealed envelope tumbled out. I grabbed it from the floor and then propped what was actually a small painting against the wall, atop my kitchen table.

And then, frozen in place, I simply stared.

It was a richly textured watercolor of a woman standing in the middle of what looked like a cornfield, her face clearly visible as she stared into the distance. She was wearing a red dress, tattered at the edges and ripped on the right sleeve, and her expression was resolute and wistful at the same time. In the background, the sky was a strikingly deep violet. “What the . . . ?” I murmured as my fingers traced the woman’s face.

She looked exactly like a younger version of my grandma Margaret. I’d written about her death in my Relating column just two months ago, and in the old family photo that had run with the piece—a shot of my grandmother holding my dad’s hand when he was a little boy—she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than the woman in the image before me now.

Feeling strangely breathless and shaken, I reached for the envelope that had accompanied the painting, tore it open along the seam, and removed the small note card inside.

I read your column, and you’re wrong,
it read in elegant cursive.
Your grandfather never stopped loving her. Margaret was the love of his life.

The note was unsigned, and its weighty, expensive-looking cardstock was nondescript. There was no clue to who had written it, though it was obviously someone who wanted me to believe that he or she knew my grandfather. But that was impossible. The man had vanished before my father was even born. Grandma Margaret had gone silent each time I asked about him, but I knew he had abandoned her, just like my father abandoned my mother and me.

That’s what my column two months ago had been about: the way the decisions of a parent trickle down through the generations. I had written about how my grandmother was a loving person, but how there’d always been a piece of her missing, a part that felt removed. I speculated that my father—who’d been raised without knowing who his own father was—felt both the absence of the man and the absence of his mother’s full attention. Grandma Margaret always seemed to be on the verge of drifting away, and even her death left things feeling somehow unfinished. In fact, it was only after she died that I’d received a final voice mail from her.
I need to see you, Emily,
she’d said, her voice weak and rasping.
Please come as soon as you can, dear.
She’d left it before dawn on Valentine’s Day, only hours before she took her last breath, and I’d slept right through it.

I’d ended the column without mentioning my own following of the family footsteps, but in the depths of my own heart, that was really what the piece was about: my fear that, unwittingly, I was walking the same path as my father and grandmother. After all, I hadn’t been in a real relationship for years, and I’d walked away from my own daughter, hadn’t I? Was I fated to become just like them? Was it in my blood? I’d concluded by encouraging readers to think through their own family histories and to confront the things that affected their own relationships before it was too late. It hadn’t escaped my notice that the column was yet one more example of me neglecting to practice what I preached.

I tried to think logically as I stared at the painting. Perhaps it had been painted
after
my column had run, by someone who used our family photo as a model? But I knew that wasn’t true; the thick paper was slightly yellowed at the edges, suggesting that it was many years old, and the expression on the woman’s face was exactly like my grandmother’s when she was deep in thought, though in the photo that had run with the column, she’d been softly smiling. I was almost certain that it had been painted by someone who knew her. But was the note implying that my long-lost grandfather had been the artist?

I had to figure out where this painting had come from. Walking over to my computer, I googled the name of the gallery, then dialed the phone number posted on its website.

But as the phone rang several times I quickly did the math and realized that it was already nearly 9 p.m. in Munich. I wasn’t surprised when an answering machine picked up. I didn’t understand a word of German, so I had no idea what the outgoing message said, but after it beeped, I began to speak, hoping that someone there spoke English.

“Hi. My name is Emily Emerson, and I just received a painting from your gallery with no indication of who the sender is. It’s a portrait of a woman standing in a field with a beautiful sky behind her. Could you please call me at your earliest convenience?” I left my number, hung up, and spent the next ten minutes in my kitchen, simply staring at the familiar face of my grandmother. Finally, I picked up the phone again, took a deep breath, and called the last person I wanted to talk to.

“Hi,” I said when my father answered. His deep voice was achingly familiar, though I hadn’t spoken with him in nearly eight months. “It’s Emily. I—I need to show you something.”

“Emily?” I hated how hopeful he sounded. It was as if he thought I was finally opening the door to a relationship. But that wasn’t what this was. “Of course. I’ll be right over.”

M
y father arrived thirty minutes later, dressed in crisp charcoal pants, a pale blue shirt, and a gray tie. It appeared he’d just come from the office. He looked thinner than he had the last time I’d seen him, at my grandmother’s funeral in February, and I was struck by how much he’d aged. His hair had gone almost completely white, and the creases on his face were deeper than ever.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, gazing at me hopefully from the doorstep.

“Come in,” I said, turning away and walking toward the kitchen before he could try anything embarrassing like a hug.

My father lived in Orlando now too; he’d come here from Miami seven years ago, apparently in hopes of reestablishing a relationship with me. He’d even opened a branch of his firm, Emerson Capital Investments, on Orange Avenue downtown so that he’d have a reason to be close by.
I wanted to be in Orlando more often so that we could have a shot at getting to know each other,
he’d told me when he first called out of the blue. Since then he had telephoned dutifully every two weeks, but I almost always let his calls roll over to voice mail and deleted most of his messages without listening. After all, what was there to say?

He’d left my mother and me when I was eleven to marry a twenty-four-year-old assistant at his firm. Her name was Monica, and the first time I’d met her, I’d told her I hated her and that she had no right to break up my parents’ marriage. She, in turn, had told my father that she wanted nothing to do with a little brat like me, a sentiment he’d repeated to me apologetically a few weeks later when he explained why I wouldn’t be hearing from him much in the future. He’d moved to Miami before I finished seventh grade, and for the next decade—as long as Monica was in the picture—I had almost no contact with him. It was like he’d forgotten he had a child in the first place.

He tried to reconcile with me after their divorce, but as far as I was concerned, it was too late. Walking away from your child like that was unforgivable. It was made worse by the fact that he hadn’t come back in the wake of my mother’s death. I’d just turned eighteen when she died, so there was no custody issue involved, but he must have realized how alone I felt. Evidently, it hadn’t mattered. He’d called once, to tersely express his sympathy, and that had been it. Later, I’d felt like a fool for spending the next month hoping every time the doorbell rang that he’d be the one standing outside my house, waiting to make me his daughter again.

By the time he resurfaced, showing up outside the journalism building at the University of Florida during my senior year of college to beg for a second chance, my walls were already up. I’d learned by then that I couldn’t rely on anyone but myself. I’d never forgiven him for teaching me that lesson at such a young age. And although he’d spent the last several years apologizing profusely on my voice mail, explaining that walking away had been the biggest mistake of his life, the damage couldn’t be undone.

“I was so glad to get your call, Emily,” my father said now, closing the front door gently behind him and following me down the hall. “I know I have a lot to explain to you and a lot to make up for, but—”

I cut him off. “This isn’t a social visit,” I told him. “I received something that I need to ask you about.”

He looked crestfallen, but he nodded and ducked into the kitchen behind me. I gestured to the kitchen table, and when he saw the painting propped up there, he stopped short and stared. “Emily, what is this?”

“I think it’s Grandma Margaret.” I hesitated. “Isn’t it?”

Silently, he reached for the painting the same way I had an hour earlier. He traced the lines of his mother’s face, and when he looked up again, I was startled to see tears in his eyes. “Where did you get this?”

“It came from a gallery in Munich, Germany.” I handed him the note. “There’s no signature. I don’t know who sent it.”

His eyes widened as he scanned the small card. “ ‘I read your column, and you’re wrong,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Your grandfather never stopped loving her. Margaret was the love of his life.’ ” He looked up to meet my eye. “This is about your column from a couple months ago, the one where you talked about damage that trickles down through the generations.”

I turned away, suddenly guilty. “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I guess I owe you an apology. I didn’t know you read my column.”

“Of course I do.” His tone was gentle and didn’t carry any of the blame I expected. “Every single one. And no apology needed. You were right about everything. I behaved abominably.”

“Right. Well, anyway.” I bit my lip and turned back to the painting, changing the subject. “How sure are you that this is actually Grandma Margaret?”

He looked at the painting for a moment. “I’m positive, actually. At the end of her life, she kept telling the same story over and over again. She kept saying that the day she met my father, she was wearing a red dress, and the sky was turning violet as the sun came up. Just like in this painting. It’s the exact scene she was describing.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I always felt so sad that the person who’d hurt her the most was the person she was thinking about at the end, as her mind got foggier. It was the only time in my life I ever heard her voluntarily mention him.”

“She missed him,” I said softly, feeling a surge of guilt that I hadn’t spent much time with my grandmother in those final months. I’d been so busy with my career that I hadn’t made the time, and now I’d regret that forever. I looked back at the painting now, my eyes tracing the familiar lines of my grandmother’s face. “But what about the person who sent the painting? Do you think they know who your father is?”

“I don’t know how that could even be possible. My mother couldn’t explain what happened to him, but some stranger in Germany mysteriously knows our family secrets? It just doesn’t add up.”

“I know. But what if it’s true, though? What if Grandma Margaret really was the love of your father’s life?”

My father looked away. “And he just vanished? Never looked back? And now someone’s sending random, cryptic messages saying that he never stopped loving her?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s unlikely.”

Something dark was simmering inside of me all of a sudden. “What’s unlikely? That he loved her but still managed to leave her behind?”

“Well, yeah. You don’t just walk away from the people you love like that.” He glanced at me, and suddenly, he seemed to realize what he’d just said. “Emily, I didn’t mean me and you. It’s not the same situation.”

I blinked a few times, any rapport between us gone in a flash. “Sure. Like father, like son, I guess.”

He waited until I met his gaze. “Emily, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can ever say or do to change what I did.”

“Then why do you keep trying?” I hated the coldness in my voice, but it’s what I reverted to every time I talked with my father. It was just easier that way.

“Look, I left because of my own baggage, my own shortcomings. And I need to try to explain that to you. I need to make it up to you.”

“Please stop.” I felt suddenly exhausted. “I hear what you’re saying. But it doesn’t change anything.” I paused and looked down at my grandmother’s face.

“I know.” After a moment of silence, my father cleared his throat. “So what do you plan to do about the painting, Emily? What are you thinking?”

I took a deep breath. “I need to find out who sent it and what they know. I want to understand what happened.”

“I do too. And I’ll help you in any way I can.”

I turned away. “Thanks, but I can do this on my own.”

“Then why did you call me?” My father’s tone was gentle, but I felt defensive all the same.

“I don’t know. I thought you might know something that could help. But I guess I was wrong.”

My father turned to stare at the painting. “All I know,” he said after a while, “is that I grew up without a father. And then I turned around and did the exact same thing to you.” He looked up and gave me a sad smile, and then, after giving my arm a quick squeeze, he headed for the door. “Believe me, I want to get to the bottom of this too.

“Emily,” he said, pausing at the threshold. “I’m glad you called.”

The phone rang the next morning just past six, jarring me out of a nightmare about my father and Monica standing at my mother’s grave, taunting me.

“This is Nicola Schubert of the Galerie Schubert-Balck in Munich,” said the heavily accented voice on the other end as soon as I picked up. “I am returning a call from Emily Emerson. You are Miss Emerson?”

“Yes, that’s right.” I was instantly awake as I reached for a notepad and pen.

“I do hope I am not calling too early. But I wanted to get back to you as soon as possible.”