Unclaimed Treasures (6 page)

Nicholas got up, moving over to where Willa stood, and gently took the picture out of her hand.

“A baby,” he said after a moment. “
The
baby. It's a picture of the baby.”

Willa stared at the picture.

“How can you tell?”

Nicholas smiled.

“I am good”—he looked at Willa—“at seeing things beneath the surface. Remember? Like seeds and roots and night crawlers?”

Willa looked. Gradually, she began to make out the figure. A head, an elbow, an arm. Willa thought of the baby pushing against her arm that afternoon. Just that afternoon. Willa held her breath.
This baby
.

Willa's father looked up.

“It is called a sonogram, taken with a machine in the doctor's office. It shows us where the baby is in the mother.” He tightened his arm around her mother.

“Mama's a little worried,” he said. “About the baby.”

Worried? Worried about what? It is only a baby, small and soft. What is there to worry about?

“Things can happen sometimes,” their father went on. “Mama is older—it's been almost twelve years since she had you. There's more risk.”

Risk?

“Mama's had tests. We know the baby is healthy.” He pointed to the picture. “And this lets us know if the baby is in the right position to be born. And if it will be a safe birth.”

Safe birth?

It had never occurred to Willa that anything bad could happen. She looked at her mother, who was blowing her nose. And all of a sudden the same cold feeling came again—the one that had made her throat close in the doctor's office.

You must do better than just look
. Old Pepper's words came back to her.

In that moment Willa knew exactly what the feeling was her mother felt.

She's afraid
. Willa looked down at the picture.
In my mother is this baby. Tiny, curled? Asleep? Awake? Brown-haired like me? Like Nicholas?
And a thought came that Willa had never allowed before.

It is real. The baby is real
.

The white dress was beautiful. It made Willa feel beautiful. She tried it on while the Unclaimed Treasures whispered and oohed and threw up their hands in excitement. The material was stiff against her bare legs. The high lace neck made her feel tall and stately.

“She looks like—”

“Never mind now.” Aunt Crystal's voice was sharp.

“The spitting image of—”

“So,” interrupted Aunt Crystal, glaring at Aunt Lulu, who might, thought Willa, be going into a decline, “the hat does not have to fit, dear.” Dear again, thought Willa. Two times she was dear in two days. “You hold it in your hand, like so.” Aunt Crystal posed, holding the hat by her side, trailing the ribbons, looking like a plump old woman in love.

“Beautiful,” murmured Aunt Lulu.

And then Horace's father came, looking distracted. He stopped and stared at Willa for one moment, opening his mouth as if he might say something. But then he shook his head and took her hand, leading her up the stairs to his attic studio, talking all the while. Willa looked at her hand in his. Though his hand felt cool, her own hand was hot.

“You look fine, Willa. Fine. Now I'll put you over here by the window.” And he placed her where a slight breeze came in the window, rustling the ribbons of the hat and lifting her hair. She had never been in his studio before, and she was surprised to see that the limbs of the apple tree outside crawled up onto the roof.

The room was filled with canvases and cloths and the smell of paint. Along one wall there were paintings neatly stacked, the painted sides facing the wall. But as Willa slowly scanned the room, she saw that some of the paintings had fallen over. Some leaned against each other, precariously, like a set of dominoes. One painting lay on the floor, ignored. Another on a large easel facing Willa—the only one she could see from where she stood—was gray and beige with a blurred figure in the middle. Willa narrowed her eyes, trying to bring the painting into focus. The breeze pushed her hair across her cheek, and Willa felt a chill. A sudden sadness. She shook her head and pushed her hair back, trying to push the feeling away, too. It was a feeling coming much too often lately. Hard to chase away. “And you'll be sad,” Nicholas had warned her when he had first learned that Matthew was her true love. And Willa
was
sad.

She watched Matthew, his brow furrowed, mixing paint and whistling softly to himself. And then, across the room, Willa saw a girl in a long white dress, standing still as stone. Willa held her breath as she stared at herself in the mirror. The dress made her look taller, older, even though she knew that the Unclaimed Treasures had taken up the hem, carefully cutting off the lace edges and sewing them back for her. Slowly, she straightened and lifted her chin. The dress was beautiful. The girl in the mirror was beautiful.
Then what was wrong?

“Here.” Willa looked up as Matthew reached around her back, his breath soft on her cheek as he adjusted her arm. “Lean your arm along the windowsill, Willa. Pretend it is the lowest limb of the apple tree. Covered with blooms.”

As Matthew leaned back to smile at Willa she suddenly knew what was wrong. She could still feel where he had touched her arm. Where his breath had brushed her cheek. She looked over to the mirror.

Under this dress is me
.
One small person
.
Not tall, not stately
.
Willa Pinkerton
.

“Tilt your head, please. Look at me,” said Matthew. “Ah, good.”

Good
. In her head Willa repeated Matthew's words. Like Bella repeating Old Pepper's words.

“Nice, nice, Willa,” Matthew called to her from behind the easel.

Nice, Willa
.

The minutes went by. The dress scratched against her legs, but Willa didn't move.

“Smile a bit, Willa. Just a little. As if . . . as if you have a secret.”

Smile a bit, Willa
.
I do have a secret
.

Willa smiled and smiled and smiled as the light moved higher in the sky. The room was filled with silence, and Willa closed her eyes.
Where are you, Ted? Wanda?
Willa thought of the baby—real and moving inside her mother. Hidden, like Willa under the dress.

“Turn your head, Willa. Look at me.”

I love you, thought Willa. She turned and opened her eyes, watching Matthew.
I love you
.

Matthew rubbed his face with the back of his hand. Willa looked at herself in the mirror.

One question, please, Horace's father. Who will the figure in the painting be? The girl in the mirror? Or the girl under the dress?

The eyes of the girl in the mirror stared blankly back at Willa. There was no answer.

The moon came in the window. It touched the covers on Willa's bed, making it into a sea. The mirror over Willa's table glowed. Willa's feet hurt. She got up, sighing, and walked out into the hall. The house was quiet, only a small light burning above the stairs. She stood in the hallway, curling her bare feet on the rug, thinking about the studio and the dress. And sitting. Sitting? Willa hadn't sat at all. She'd stood for hours. Stood in the silence until the backs of her legs were stretched and tight, her shins ached, and her head reeled. Why did they call it sitting? Willa walked down the stairs, her hand gliding along the banister. She passed through the dining room, where the bouquet of flowers stood in the moonlight, past the hum of the kitchen. The door of her father's study was open, a lamp lit inside. Willa pushed the door open with one finger. Her mother was sitting in the wing chair, reading, her feet curled under her. She was smiling slightly, slowly twisting a lock of hair in her finger. She looked happy. No, not happy. Not joyous, certainly. But content.

Her mother looked up.

“Willa? Not sleeping?”

Willa shook her head, touching her mother's outstretched hand. She sat on her father's desk chair.

Her mother sighed. “I can't sleep either.” She looked at Willa. “Too fat to sleep.”

Willa grinned and her mother grinned back.

“Willa,” her mother began, “about the other night. My crying.”

Willa pushed her hair behind her ears and sat, listening.

“I didn't mean to worry you. Having a baby is such an important thing. So important that sometimes I try to forget about it—push it away. But it always comes back.” Her mother took something from between the pages of the book she was reading. “And this brought it all back.”

It was the picture of the baby.

“Most times the baby seems so far away,” her mother said. “Not really there, you know. But the picture . . .”

“Made it real,” said Willa. Like seeds and roots and night crawlers, she thought. Like Nicholas's picture of the garden.

“Why, Willa,” said her mother, staring at her. “I guess you're right.” And Willa realized that she had spoken her thought out loud.

“I never thought about you much before you were born, you and Nicholas,” said her mother, leaning her head against the back of the chair. “But when you came I was so overjoyed. I can remember crying.”

“Overjoyed?” Willa sat up. “You mean joyous?”

“Yes, Willa,” said her mother, smiling. “Joyous.”

“Even though we kept you from your dancing?”

“Dancing? Willa, what are you talking about?”

“You said you didn't dance anymore after we were born. Remember?”

Willa's mother leaned forward in her chair.

“But Willa, that was my choice. I didn't want to dance then. I had you and Nicholas. I was . . .” Her mother waved her hand, trying to find the words. “I was . . . joyous.”

Willa frowned.
So much joy over two small babies? Just Willa? Just Nicholas?

“Mama?”

“Yes.”

“When this baby comes I can take care of it sometimes, can't I?”

“Of course, Willa.”

“Then you can dance,” said Willa.

Willa's mother looked at her for a long time. Her eyes filled up.

Please God, thought Willa, don't let her cry. Please. I'll vacuum the living room. The study. The backyard!

“That is a wonderful idea,” said her mother very steadily. “A gift.”

Her mother handed her the picture of the baby.

“Now I'll give you a gift. Meet your sister, Willa.”

Willa looked at the picture.

“Sister? Maybe it will be a brother.”

Her mother shook her head. “No, I know. The doctors and your father and I know. Because of a test. It is a girl. And”—she looked at Willa—“she will be . . . she
is
your sister.”

Upstairs the door to Nicholas's room was open, a slice of moonlight cutting across the hallway. Willa stood over him, watching his chest rise and fall. The bedcovers were neat and smooth around him. His lips were slightly parted in a smile. The room was cool, the curtains billowing, and Willa hopped from one foot to the other. She hugged herself and shivered, wishing him awake. She coughed loudly. She leaned against the bed and pushed the mattress three times. Nicholas didn't move.

For a long time Willa stood there, watching. For a long time she thought about kissing him.

She didn't.

“Wake up, Nicholas!” she yelled at the top of her voice, nearly overcome with joy. “We've got us a sister!”

I love you, Matthew
.

It was early in the studio, and through the open windows Willa could hear the Unclaimed Treasures playing near the garden. The cats were on the roof peering in and making growlings; soft, warm sounds.

“When can I see the painting?” asked Willa.

“Later,” murmured Matthew. “Not yet.”

“Why don't you just take a photograph?” Willa surprised herself with the question. Her voice sounded loud in the studio quiet.

“What, Willa?” Matthew was frowning, his hands making quick brush strokes on the canvas. “What?”

“A photograph. Why do you need me here?”

“A photograph,” mumbled Matthew, concentrating. “A photograph,” he said brightly as he stood up. He thought.

“A photograph,” said Matthew, interrupting Willa's thoughts, “is the camera's eye. I need my eye. My eye of you.”

Willa frowned.

“Don't wrinkle your forehead,” said Matthew.

Willa concentrated on not frowning. It made her stomach hurt.

“What
is
your eye?” asked Willa, thinking fiercely of a smooth forehead.

“I don't know yet,” said Matthew, peering at his painting, then at her.

“Don't know!” Willa stared at him. “You mean you don't know what I look like?”

Matthew sighed and straightened.

“I mean,” he said in a fierce tone of his own, “that I cannot tell now how the painting will look. It may not look the way you think you look. The way
I
think you look. There are,” he added more softly, “many things that get in the way between the time a painting is started and it is finished.”

“Like what?”

Matthew picked up a cloth and wiped his hands. “Feelings, moods. Things hidden.”

“You mean things under the surface!” announced Willa so loudly that Matthew burst out laughing. “My life is full of things under the surface!” She scratched her leg. The material of the dress was irritating.

“It is the same for all of us.” said Matthew, stretching, then wearily rubbing his own tired back.

He is, I suppose, thinking about Winnie gone to seek her fortune, thought Willa.