Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,111
hand. He’d been doing some of the painting for her this week, always the background, leaving the more intricate work for her. But most days, she’d simply sit on one of the chairs and turn her head away from the mural.
“It makes me sick to look at,” she told him.
The cot and its telltale stain were gone. Jesse had gotten rid of them and Anna didn’t ask what he’d done with them. She didn’t care. All that remained of that night in the warehouse was the revolting splash of red paint on the floor. Bile rose in her throat every time she saw it. Guilt and anger took turns toying with her and there was rarely a moment that she wasn’t suffering from one or the other. She barely slept, and when she did, she had frightening nightmares that left her confused about what was real and what was not. When she remembered what was real, she would break down sobbing whether she was alone in her room at Miss Myrtle’s or in an aisle of the pharmacy or sitting numbly in the warehouse.
Once, during the week after it happened, Pauline stopped by the warehouse to ask her to go to lunch. At the sound of Pauline’s car outside the warehouse, Jesse put the brush and palette in Anna’s hands and pulled her to her feet, his hand on her elbow.
“’Least pretend like you workin’,” he whispered.
Anna turned down Pauline’s invitation, too afraid of what she might say if she spent more than a few minutes with her friend. She didn’t want to hear any more of Pauline’s questions and suspicions. She was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Giving herself—and Jesse—away. Anna could no longer trust her mind or her tongue. Her brain felt soft, her thoughts jumbled.
If Miss Myrtle wondered why Anna was so quiet at breakfasttime, and why she was now home for supper each evening instead of working late into the night, she didn’t say, but the landlady was clearly worried about her.
“You should see a doctor,” she told her Thursday morning. “You’re usually so happy-go-lucky. Most likely, you just need some iron.”
It took Anna a moment to smile in response, as though Miss Myrtle’s words had to fight their way into her brain. If only the cure for what ailed her could be so simple, she thought. But iron wouldn’t help her. There was nothing that would ease her guilt and fear.
When Anna dragged herself to the warehouse Friday morning, she found Jesse already there. He stood in front of the mural and looked over at her, his eyes dark with worry.
“Anna,” he said quietly. “What did you do?”
She followed his gaze to the mural. There, jutting out from between the skirts of the Tea Party ladies, was the red fender and black tire of Martin’s motorcycle. Anna gasped, her hand to her mouth. Why was she surprised? She’d painted it. She knew she had. Yet her memory of painting it was hazy and dreamlike.
“I’ll fix it,” Jesse said. “You rest.”
“I’ll only put it back,” she told him.
He frowned at her. “Why?” he asked. She heard panic in his voice. “You gotta forget what happened!”
She didn’t know why. All she knew was that the motorcycle had to be there.
But Jesse painted over it. Anna watched him add the ladies’ skirts back where they had been. He was a good artist, but he was only learning how to work in oil and Anna could see him struggle to imitate her style of painting. Anyone with even a slightly discerning eye would know she hadn’t painted those skirts. Yet she felt indifferent, watching him. She would come back later tonight, after he was gone. Even though the warehouse haunted her at night, she’d return. She needed to put that motorcycle back where it belonged.
Chapter 51
MORGAN
July 20, 2018
I thought about Mama Nelle as I sat in front of the library’s microfilm reader that evening, hunting for more articles about Anna. I wished I’d had the key to unlock Mama Nelle’s memory, and now it was too late. I felt saddened by her death. I hoped she’d died peacefully. Painlessly.
I’d just about mastered the microfilm reader now, yet it took forever to hunt for articles that mentioned Anna, especially since they were few and far between. But an article suddenly jumped out at me. An odd one. I noticed it only because of the word “artist” in the headline.