David pauses and takes a deep breath. “He used to hit her.” He says with a deep frown. “She’d have a bruise and tell everyone that she fell or something, I didn’t even know until I saw him hit her when I was fourteen.”
I close my eyes, feeling his pain. “What did you do?” I ask gently.
“I didn’t know what to do.” He says, looking into my face, his eyes searching mine, as if looking for some confirmation that there was nothing he could have done. “When I begged her to leave Henry, she laughed and said I was imagining things because I hated him so much.” He laughs mirthlessly. “It went on like that till I was about seventeen, then one day he lost his temper and hit her, right in front of me. He kept hitting her, and when I tried to pull him off, he started to hit me too. Well I fought back, and I beat him up really badly. I didn’t know what my mother would think. But I didn’t expect her to stand beside Henry when he had me arrested, and say nothing in my defense.”
“She didn’t explain why you hit him?”
David shakes his head. “Henry told the police that I was prone to violent fits, and she agreed with him, she agreed with everything he said. I spent a week in a facility for troubled teens, and he hired a psychiatrist who agreed with what they said. I was going to be transferred to a home because he had everybody convinced that I was crazy.
“I’m so sorry David.”
He turns away, pacing away from my desk before coming right back, a frown marring his brow. “Do you know why my mother agreed with him, Sophie?” he asks, “because she signed a pre-nup before they got married. In the event of a divorce, she’d have gotten nothing. That’s why she threw me over for him again and again, because losing the money and status meant more than her son’s life.”
I sigh, “She said she was in love with him, that she just wanted to make him happy.”
“I’m sure she did.” David scoffs, “She’s very good at telling herself what she wants to believe.”
“What happened after?” I ask, “How did you get out?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “One day, I was released, all the charges were dropped, and my record wiped clean. Steve picked me up and took me to the house. When we got there both Henry and my mother had gone on another one of their trips. I left, and never went back, and I never heard from my mother until after Henry died.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know.” I say, my heart breaking for him.
“Well, you couldn’t have.” He frowns. “The next time she tries to make you feel some sympathy for her and tells you that she ‘hurt’ me when I was a child, at least you’ll know what she did.”
I nod. At least now I know why he never lets anyone in, why he couldn’t let me in. He’s been hurt by someone he loved, at the time when it could make the most impression, and now he’ll never expose himself to that kind of pain again.
I’ll never hurt him, but what does it matter? He doesn’t trust anyone enough to let them in, not even me.
“David,” I get up and go around my desk to where he’s standing. “I’d like to show you something.”
He looks wary. “What is it?”
“You’ll have to come with me.” I tell him with a gentle smile. He waits while I interrupt the tournament going on in the back office to tell Jan and Larry that I have to step out for a while. They wave me off, more concerned about finishing their game than about me.
“About this morning…” David starts again, his voice strangely hesitant. I look at his face, confused by the uncertain expression I find there. What is he going to say?
“Wait.” I tell him, leading him outside. “You can tell me later.”
Surprisingly, he obeys, and follows me down the street to the museum, as he holds one of the swing doors open for me to step inside, there’s a quizzical look on his face, but he doesn’t ask any questions.
Trey smiles and waves at me, but when he sees David, he doesn’t come over to talk.
I lead David to the painting, faltering as we approach it. I’ve been so certain about it for so long, but now I wonder if maybe I’m wrong. What if David doesn’t believe me? What if he can’t see what I see when I look at it.
It’s hanging in its usual place, everything about it the same as when I first saw it.
David stares at the painting for a while, and then reads the name at the bottom. “Jonathan Cutler,” he says at last. “I’ve never heard of him.” He looks at me, his eyes searching. “Does it mean something to you?”
“Yes.” I sigh, “When I first started working at the store I used to come here just to look at this.” I pause. “It just drew me, somehow.”
David nods, his eyes encouraging me to continue.
“Then I learned that the painter was a professor at one of the local colleges, and that he had an affair with one of his students. When his wife found out, she drove her car over a bridge with him in it.”
David gives the painting another searching look. “And this was the student?”
I nod. “He loved her.” I say. “That’s what I see when I look at this painting. That even though it was wrong, and even tough ultimately, it destroyed all their lives, he loved her.”