"Marine Guernsey" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1883), stolen in 1940 after famed art dealer and owner Ambroise Vollard died in a bizarre car crash in 1939; his brother Lucien Vollard allegedly aided two other art experts in the theft of numerous paintings from the dealer's inheritance of some 6,000 artworks, some were sold to Nazis or offered to German dealers and museums; four paintings ended up at Musée d'Orsay, and in February 2023 after a long legal battle, the museum was ordered to return the paintings to Vollard's heirs - value unknown

Chapter Fifty-Three

The cliffs were steep above the frothy mess that was the coast.

Ice plant covered the flatter portions higher up, where it became less of a cliff and more of a plateau. There were worn paths on the rocks, in the scraggly dirt, and among the pale brownness of it all, puckered with green and splashes of wildflower purple. It was beautiful, even now, in the sapping daylight.

Sunset was spilling.

Cosmic change had come once again.

Looking at sunsets made souls restless. We knew this. We heard songs about it, mumbled folklore about it, we saw it tattooed on poet's tongues and yearning ghost's skin. We knew this—like we knew the sea was beautiful and terrifying—we knew it, because our souls felt it. It wasn't a mystery. The feeling wasn't unique. Like I'd wondered too many times before: maybe nothing was unique or left to be discovered; maybe nothing was left to be felt that would strike us in its newness. Maybe art was repetitive. Maybe humans ourselves were. God, I could cringe at how bare the feeling was, how much it'd worn the stares of all who'd gazed on our disappearing sun.

No, I wasn't the first to feel this way. I never was.

I wasn't the first to stand on these cliffs, surrounded by blankets of throttling life, and know the existing flora wasn't welcomed. To know the succulent shrub didn't belong. It was invasive. To feel that even so, even if it was, that I had little choice but to admit it was lovely. I had to. It brought green here, where its specific shades weren't always natural; it brought purple to kiss the salty air with scarlet petal lips, tinged with cerulean hues. It flourished, and it killed, and it grew on these cliffs.

"What do you want?"

When his gruff voice sounded from behind me, it sounded like his temper was already flaring. It wasn't surprising, of course. Not really. But not even he could fully drain what the dusk had brought me. Oh, still, I hated to turn around. I dreaded relinquishing any power to those who hadn't earned it. How many times had I done that before? And now, here I was doing it again.

But still I turned to face the waiting man behind me.

Andrew Graves was slouched and surly when I awarded him my attention. He hadn't changed; he seemed just as shabby and snide as the first day I met him. He gazed at me just as angrily, just as annoyed, just as villain-like. Except, I'd learned a lot about villains in a very short time. I'd learned what I should've already known: it was never good to judge by first glance. The harshest strokes were made by the most innocent hands. The gentlest touches were born from the bloodiest palms. The calmest smiles hid the unsteadiest grounds. The cheapest canvas held the prettiest paint.

I knew a lot about villains now.

Just like I knew deep down, where the call of a love left lonesome wailed into the night, that Andrew Graves wasn't the face that should've greeted me. He wasn't the one I wanted to see, nor the one I bore the burden of longing for—but he was the one I'd invited. He was the one I'd told to meet me on these cliffs, having demanded his presence when I was done washing oil and ash from my hands. I'd instructed him to meet me on rocky ledges that reminded me of the ones his great-grandmother had painted all those years ago, the ones both her and her cat had trodden, the ones she'd lost her battle to. It seemed only right we ended this on the same cliffs Damar sat on.

For that breath, we sized each other up. I watched his eyes land on the parcel I hugged to my chest. I saw how they crinkled and narrowed, how he glanced up to meet my own; I could feel how withdrawn, how dead, how damn numb I was—and I knew he saw it, too.

"What do you want, Vaycker?" he repeated. His gaze was a little different now. A little hesitant; a little intrigued.

Good, I thought. That was good.

I was glad he was hesitant. He should be. I wanted to finish this, but in what way it ended, I wasn't entirely sure I cared. Not anymore. I figured I was just desperate to be done.

And yet... god, there was still another fractioned part of me, quiet but honest, that didn't agree with the rest. It couldn't bring myself to care if it ever ended at all.

I could laugh at that realization. I couldn't be uniform in my convictions, even now, after everything. Once, I'd been adamant on required resolutions. Now... now, one flush of the wind against my burning skin and this canvas could flap through the air, like the sails of a ship sailing far away from here. That was all it would take. One burst of breeze, and it would belong to the skies, and eventually the seas.

I sighed. No strong winds were pulling me now.

"I brought you what you've been looking for."

That was all I said as I thrust the wrapped package towards him. Graves eyed it, but he didn't move.

Anger, disbelief, resignation, victory: they slashed his irises with crimson claws and snapped wet jaws by his ears. Though, of course, he didn't overtly show it. Graves just watched me. I hated it. Scrutiny had become too familiar. Judgement had become too comfortable. It was time to disappear and I hated the redundant reminder.

"So you did have it," he said.

I didn't answer.

"You took it," he continued, arrogant.

No.

No, I wanted to deny.

That was my first reaction—it hung on my lips and whet itself on my teeth—but then it died on my tongue. It wasn't me, at least not how he thought. Not how I'd once thought, either.

Yet... wasn't it?

Wasn't it me?

I had taken the painting from Geraldine.

Not intentionally, not when I'd meant to, not anytime close to when I'd learned the truth. But I had taken the Widow from her. The Widow had become mine when I was still kissed by the fresh spring of youth, when my future was still mine, when I still had loyalty and love, when I'd still believed in Whitehill integrity. I'd taken the Widow from her the moment I'd accepted a gift from a close friend years before. Geraldine's grandson had given me the button to demolish his family without anyone's knowledge. I'd accepted a ticking time bomb from a friend, who hadn't known, who'd only wanted to make me happy.

I'd been given it because he loved me—because he loved me, he'd given me something that would ruin us all.

And none of us had known.

But it wasn't his fault.

It wasn't mine, either, at least not then. Later, maybe. Later, maybe, it was my fault. Later, maybe, he had some part in it, too.

I shoved that thought away as soon as it struck. I couldn't handle it.

Anyone but August. Even if true, anyone but August.

"Take it, Graves," I ordered. My arm held strong though I could still feel the trembles of my world beneath me. Any longer and it'd overtake my limbs. "Just take it and go."

He surely heard my plea within my demands. Graves still stared, but he did reach for it then, his rough fingers clasping around brown paper and twine. Despair was a wire wrapped around my throat, but with a clench of my hand and the release of my will, it was gone. I turned my eyes back to the water. It was done now. It was all over.

Mournful, I wished for silence.

Heartbroken, I prayed for it.

Yet, like always, I didn't know best. In fact, I was surprisingly glad when silence wasn't given. It was quiet now—with only the gentle sounds of the scenery to be heard—but it wasn't silent. Perhaps it wasn't possible. Maybe there was no silence near water. No, wait, that was wrong, too, I realized. There was silence before tsunamis; there were deadly calms before storms. Maybe now, if there was no silence, if volume instead lazily tickled my ears, I could breathe. Maybe now, my storms had all been weathered into whispers; my gales had been defeated to breezes on mellow currents.

"What now?" I heard.

I glanced back, surprised. Why was he still here? He should be running to his grandmother, inviting her to relish in the end of their family's torment. So why did Graves look so exhausted? Why was he looking at me like I'd ruined something for him? The hound shouldn't look so wretched about the fox's early surrender. And that—was that begrudging respect I saw staining his demeanor, like a stray charcoal smudge?

I looked back to the sea. The horizon was flooded with molten color. The sappy blue would soon greedily accept the blossoming orange and befuddled pinks. Dusk would shortly embrace the playing hues like a mother welcomed children come home for bed.

My tongue was a snake in my mouth, rearing its head from the bush it waited to burn in. "What do you mean?" I rattled.

He clicked his own tongue. "Where do you go from here?"

But I stayed silent. Graves sighed when it stretched. It was the great billowing heave of an irascible man while he came to stand beside me.

I was screaming through my teeth. Go, I thought. Go, please. Leave me. Leave me here. I'm not like your great-great-grandmother. I promise.

I didn't speak, but lord, how I screamed. Maybe she had, too.

Graves shifted his weight then as if we stood on sturdy ground. He was still puffing when he peered at me through the hazy remnants of twilight blue. "You never struck me as a thief," he remarked.

There was a tone I didn't care to pinpoint writhing underneath his words. And, oh, I could laugh at that, too.

"You never struck me as a loving grandson," I countered.

Graves afforded himself a careless chuckle at that. He gave it like I wanted it, prickling my skin with its raucous outburst, luckily soon lost to the wind. Too many things were. Yet, somehow, never enough. Maybe all of our widows should've been left to it, too.

"No, I suppose I don't," he agreed.

The plants around us bobbed in the breeze as if nodding in encouragement. The sun stained its last marks; the families in the distance packed their things after a long day of enjoying content coastal waters.

"I heard what you said," Graves declared, breaking the peace I yearned to enjoy. He was persistent; it was a grating trait of his that surely fared his career well. "At the funeral—you said it was fake."

I swayed with the gust of an excited wind. Was that her again?

"I know the Widow at Whitehill was fake," he clarified, emphasizing it as if I didn't understand. His determination could be heard from here, some six feet away, and his gaze was suspicious as he eyed the package cradled in his hands. I scoffed, shaking my head at the sight. There was only one Widow now.

"You think I'd bear the hell of your company to give you a fake?" I demanded. "That's real. It's the only one."

I could feel him studying me again like he'd be graded on it, searching, waiting for a flinch, a tell, a twitch of a liar's eye. He could find it, find all of it, but I'd still be telling the truth right then. I felt his frustration when nothing he found was enough to pound the gavel of certainty.

"I hope so," he eventually drawled instead.

I scoffed again, and he hesitated.

"Do I want to know where you got it from?"

I thought about my answer for a breath. Then shrugged. My gaze was lovingly stuck on the dimming horizon, but my eyes were burning. From the flare of the sky or the touch of the wind, I wasn't sure; from the salt air or that of my numb tears, I didn't know. I wasn't worried. They were so withdrawn, so forcefully repressed, that there would be no escape down gaunt cheeks, no surrender, no release. They would boil me from the inside out.

I smiled. "I thought you already knew."

Was I wrong to have a smile take refuge in the ruins? To hide what shouldn't exist? It was so faint I wasn't sure he'd seen it, so faint I wasn't sure I wore it.

A flicker of doubt scraped his expression. "I thought I did, too."

I pitied the lot of us. We were all fools in our own ways.

I rolled my lip between my teeth, calming myself with the pain of a careless bite. It grounded me. I wasn't a bird, I wasn't flying, I wasn't free. I was here, hand aching from a uncontrolled knife, lip swollen and red. Everything was still red. Maybe it always would be.

"No," I decided. "You don't want to know. It's over."

Graves' brows were low, stern; his expression thoughtful, yet haggard. He was stubborn. It showed in how he painfully tried to decipher me, like an archaeologist struggled with ancient symbols carved on immortal rocks. What a shame it was, that time had taken yet another key. Not even I had it. I waited, my mind drifting while I let it. I didn't care. I had nothing to tether it to.

"Kid," Graves said gently, startling me. It wasn't a tone Andrew Graves wore very often, or very well. It was rusty and clunky, and even then, still too smooth for him and his uneven temperament.

Smearing icing on pavement didn't make it cake.

"That day..." he started.

He allowed it to hang in the air, letting dread snake over my feet and reach for my hands. I was still waiting. Waiting, waiting, always goddamn waiting. He let it truly bite when he finished, "I also heard you say it wasn't you."

My eyes darted from the sky, landing on him and back. Apparently, he'd decided he did want to know. Who was he to ask without questions? Who was he to want to know?

"And?"

"Briefly, I thought maybe you weren't bullshitting me," he mused. "That maybe you didn't take it—that you really didn't know we weren't the ones who took the painting. But now, here you are, with the painting. You some kind of an actor, kid? Was that all a show, like your friend?"

I pulled my arms tight around my body.

"Or maybe it really wasn't you. Maybe you weren't acting. But then, who did? How did you end up with it now?" he pressed again, louder.

Couldn't he see how ghastly the bruises were that he kept prodding? He kept leaning and leaning, but this flesh was battered with colors the skies feared.

I was tired of explaining myself. I didn't owe him answers. I had once owed him a painting, and I'd just paid my debts. Wasn't that enough?

Graves was like the others, though, he hated my silence.

"No, I don't think it was you," he thought aloud after a moment. He seemed to have confirmed something in my unspoken arguments. The gentleness he clumsily layered throughout his next prods sounded abnormal to both of us, but still, he tried. "And if I'm right, you have nothing to feel guilty about, Vaycker. You didn't do it."

"I would've done it," I said suddenly.

Didn't he know that? Had he believed all this time I wouldn't have had the guts to? That I would've let them down at the last moment? That I wouldn't have followed through on my promise to Clara, to Marigold, to Vanessa? "I was there that night to do it. I conspired to betray them. I would've done it if it was... if it was... all this time, I thought—"

"I believe you," he muttered grimly. "You forget: until recently, I was convinced you were a guilty brat. A guilty brat who was stupid enough to get caught."

I did remember now. The wave of insecurity dipped back to the usual tidal pool of angst. For a moment, I'd been angry, as if he'd shackled me with ideas of innocence, but I'd forgotten he'd only ever thought of me as guilty. I wasn't sure what was worse anymore.

"I am guilty," I said. "I would have taken it."

Graves shrugged. His movements were exaggerated enough to snag my periphery. Even now, my request of a blind eye, of blissful ignorance, was mocked. "But you didn't. None of us did. We didn't take it."

Didn't I?

He sucked his teeth before he spoke again. I could hear the hopeless humor in his voice. "Guess it wouldn't have mattered, anyway, huh?" he reasoned. "Since it was a replica? Even if we had taken it and gotten away with it, my family still wouldn't have had the painting we wanted."

No, I agreed.

It wouldn't have mattered. It was all for nothing, no matter how you looked at it. My betrayal had been worth pennies when I'd bet the Widow's millions. I'd gambled and lost.

"What will you do now? Where will you go?" He was insistent, even if he draped it with disguises of laidback curiosity, pretending it was casual conversation. Was it because I knew too much? Was he eager to confirm his own safety?

Didn't he know I'd sink my own ships if I ever aimed at his?

Or maybe, I realized, he knew how little that bothered me now. How little I had to lose. Perhaps it made him nervous.

"I don't know where I'm going from here," I chose to mercifully relent. I felt an aching breath whisper hollow words as it slithered in my traitorous lungs, my eyes on cresting waves, "but—"

"—you're not going home."

The waves were mild. The beginning of summer should have made them bold. They should've been beating foamy fists on tempered grey rocks, they should've been cheering the gulls with the force of their depths. But they were mild, turning into themselves rather than the shore. The riots were inward, the battles were in-house. Weren't they always?

I looked over to the man I hoped to never see again.

"No," I answered simply. "I'm not. Too many people made sure of that."

Graves rubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw. In the last few drops of light, I wondered if I saw the beginnings of guilt about him. Maybe I knew guilt well now, like I once knew pigeons and parrots under crystal chandeliers.

"You didn't deserve to be part of this, kid."

I scowled when I met his gaze. "Clara never deserved it, either. We don't always get what we deserve. I know that now."

If people got what they deserved... well, I wouldn't be where I was. I wouldn't be who I was, or even what I was. I knew that. I would be chained to a rock for my betrayal, I would be tossed to the sun, I would be shunned for my sins. I would be watching my love thrive, I would watch him forget, I would watch him live without me. He deserved that. And me—I think I would still be loyal. Because I think I agreed with Graves. I'd deserved the peace of ignorance; I hadn't deserved to be burdened. I'd deserved to live in the before and I'd deserved to remain there. I would be like I was at the beginning; I never would have been thrust through the events that'd shaped me to who I was now. No, I'd deserved an unmarred youth, like my parents deserved more than one daughter who merited them, like my sister deserved all she'd ever gotten and then some. Like Lena and August deserved each other freely, without having to balance scales or spin around spikes of public opinion. We'd all deserved more than we'd been given. And we'd all been given more than we deserved.

"Would it make a difference if I told you just how much you've helped us? Or what my grandmother said?" Graves cleared his throat, hooking his hands in his belt, visibly uncomfortable at his own altruism. "I talked with my grandmother after the funeral; she'd heard what you said. She told me some more about Mrs. Whitehill."

Bile flooded my throat at the name. 'Mrs. Whitehill' was August's mother, and yet that wasn't who he was speaking about. Geraldine would've hated that.

"I don't know." My voice was dry, but my chest was thick.

Twilight would soon give way to dusk, dusk would soon give way to night. Dams would give way to floods, stilts would give way to storms. I didn't have very many answers. The ones I did, I rocketed between yearning to hold them close, and desperately fighting to keep them away. But I wasn't sure I could take any more mysteries. I wasn't sure what else could hurt me now. I wasn't sure what else was left to break.

"What did your grandmother say?" I finally decided. I was tired.

Graves chewed his words first as if to make them easier to hear, before blurting out, "She said she thought Geraldine did it because of her husband."

My own teeth ached at the thought, burdened under the weight of my clenched jaw. Had this all been for Artie? All of it? The museum, the fian, the Widow, the loss? The goddamn ruin of it all?

"What do you mean?"

"Since her husband bought the Widow for her—"

"It was the last gift he gave her," I said, looking sharply at Graves. "Marigold thinks it was because she didn't want to give that up?"

He shrugged. His hand scratched haphazardly over his round jaw again, raking through unkempt hair. "Who knows? There's no way to know now."

No, I agreed. There wasn't. When secrets were taken to the grave, their answers were buried alive with them, too.

Silence lulled, like the tides we stood above. God, I hated silence. I peered over the side of the cliff to see the water.

"I heard you were given the painting in her will," Graves said. Why was he still fighting to keep this conversation going? He was clearly wheedling what answers he could get from me, but it was like removing quills; sometimes it hurt more coming out than it did going in. "Was it always like that? Or was it an apology, you think? She threw you to the wolves, whether you deserved it or not."

Carrie had said the same thing. Did it matter?

"I don't know," I mumbled. "Maybe."

Maybe it was an apology. Or maybe, I thought, Geraldine had done it because she'd known everything. She'd known I had the Widow. This way, it was truly mine. It was my decision what happened to her; my burden of choice.

On these cliffs, I was relinquishing that burden, too. 

"Was it a confession?"

"I wouldn't know what she meant it to be," I snapped stiffly, looking over. "And I don't know what you want me to say, Graves. Because even if I did, if I knew something she might want to confess, I wouldn't tell you. I won't. You have the Widow—that's all that matters now."

Graves exhaled, slow. With pursed lips and a fidgety demeanor, it was nothing like the feral behaviors of chained anger I'd come to expect from him. He probably had more he wanted to say, more bruises he wanted to lean his weight on, but I had my own thoughts pounding my skull, carving my sternum, and rattling my ribs.

"Tell Marigold I'm sorry," I hoarsely whispered. "What Geraldine did..."

"I'm just glad Grandma lived long enough to see it returned."

Not everyone did.

The coal I'd swallowed so many months ago roared as it rocketed up my chest to be spilled here between us.

"Why me?" I asked suddenly, turning to face him fully now. "Because I asked the right questions? Because of my position at the museum? Why did you and Vanessa choose me to be a part of it?"

Graves wouldn't stop staring. I could see how he paused, thoughtful, and how something gleamed about him through the dark, like sharpened obsidian under moonlight. He reached into his pocket to pull out a half-smushed cigarette, popping it between his grim lips. I wanted to tell him not to, that he'd ruin the breeze with its acrid smoke, but he lit it, and the foul smell mixed with the clear air to settle in my airways.

"A little bit of both," he finally answered, tipping his shoulders, "and then some."

"Like what?"

"You were the only person ashamed enough to do it." His eyes flicked to his cigarette.

"Ashamed?"

Graves shrugged again. Arrogance pervaded the air as much as his smoke did. "If anyone else had found out first, they would've swept all this shit under the rug. They would've done damage control with lawyers and settlements, and they would've made it damn near impossible for us," he said. "We didn't want that. We wanted the widow. Grandma doesn't have time for decades of legal battles."

I felt how sticky, how burning, how horrid the tar of his answer was as it smeared against my skull. Shame, was that what it was? That pulsed in my every cell?

"Besides, we had to tell you something after you reached out," Graves said, shaking his head. He watched me beadily through the ever-fading light. "We didn't want you telling anyone what you'd found before we could take action. We did our research on you—if you knew it was a secret, that Grandma didn't want it shared, you wouldn't tell. Especially if you thought we were right. Who would do that to an ailing old woman? Who would break her heart?"

But isn't that what I did?

I was going to be sick all over these purple wildflowers.

I hated the grin he gave me then, fresh from a long drag of the stick, as if more thoughts freckled his tongue. He leered at me as he continued, "So it was pretty lucky that it was you out of everyone to find out, huh? Not to mention, your help would've been invaluable! I knew if anyone could get away with it, the heiress with a vendetta seemed the likely candidate. The next choice would'a probably been that twerp grandson, but he's an arrogant prick. And he would've told her. But you? Hell, you had webs all over him and that museum. Being his bed-buddy has its perks, I suppose."

Violent, violent purple.

Even now, I was reduced to my title, real or imagined. "You couldn't have known whether I would expose you or not," I denied, insistently pointing out the absurdity of their faith. "At any point, I could've gone to Geraldine, or to August. To any of them. I was almost like family."

"Maybe." He nursed his smoke with disgusting relish. "But it was a risk we decided to take. I wasn't convinced you would've told anyone. Call it a hunch, or like recognizing like—and I knew I was right after you found out the whole truth. If I thought you were desperate or determined before... nah, you wanted to do the right thing. I was right on the money, too. You didn't tell a goddamn soul."

My tongue strained at the viciousness of my teeth, my lips hid crimes of war.

"I never liked you, Eleanor," Graves said.

I never asked you to.

"I've been doing this a long time. I know what you are. You're off-brand nepotism on a good day." He glanced at me from behind the cigarette he now twiddled between his fingers, and tipped it in my direction. "I'll give credit where it's due, though; you tried to earn it. You tried to come through. You wanted that position—but you wanted to do it the right way. There's honor in that."

I didn't answer.

Graves' eyes squinted as his lips hardened into another sadistic grin, more like a baring of teeth than a smile. He leaned in. I could see the annoyance, the fury, the disrespect. Something had flipped.

"Or, maybe the real answer is I thought you seemed just bored enough for us to make it work. You reek of self sabotage," he laughed, halfway into a sneer. "Besides, what better way to get your parents to notice you? Isn't that what you wanted? Or was it just the thrill?"

Even now, when I'd thought we'd found some loose semblance of truce, when I'd thought it possible he harbored drops of guilt or concern—he taunted me. He turned on me.

I looked at him, feeling the blood rush through my head. I could be angry. I could yell, scream, curse. I could do it. Anger knew me so well, it would come if I called. Any other day, it would be present before I so much as thought about it, already out of hiding from where it lurked. I could summon it now. I could be furious. But, lord, I was tired. And the wind was blowing, the gulls were crying, and the waves were playing. I was tired.

"Why were the cops so sure it was me?"

Graves quirked a brow. I could perhaps see a whisper of smothered disappointment about him, a hint of dismay at my lack of reaction, but I chose not to notice. "Just being there wasn't enough," I continued. "Where did I go wrong?"

He tilted his head to roll the cigarette back between his lips. His mouth pulled thin. "They didn't know it was you. If they did, you'd be in a jail cell. Or rather, you'd be out on bail on daddy's dollar," he grudgingly pointed out.

"But why, Graves? Why me?"

"You would've been the catch of the year if they could've pinned it on you, guilty or not. Shit, kid, do you need me to explain everything to you?"

I stood, holding that answer for another moment. I hated it.

"Little did they know," I said, feeble.

He barked another laugh, that glee back in his eyes. "Yes. Little did they know."

But Graves got frustrated again when his laughs choked without response. "You still never said what comes next," he prodded. "What's the big secret, anyway?"

I thought of the suitcase in Agatha, of the pile of ash in a trashcan in my apartment, of the poppies in another package on my front seat, already stamped and sealed. Maybe Graves heard my answer in my silence. He sounded surprised.

"You really mean it. What about the boy?" he probed.

How silly it was to think of Simon as a boy. How silly it was to compare him to something as innocent as that, when I'd ripped him apart and broken his heart. How silly this all was.

"He'll get over it."

"You love him, don't you?"

I think there was a beginning, and an end, and somewhere in the middle I fell in love with him.

"It doesn't matter now."

"Does he know?"

My hands wrapped around my body again. I hugged myself on the cliff, and tried not to fall. Words echoed off rock. "Does it matter?"

"Will he tell?" Graves persisted.

"Does it matter?" I emphasized. He scoffed beside me. "No, Graves. He won't."

"How do you know?"

Because I'd never met anyone as loyal as Simon Gastapolous.

"Because he loves me, too," I admitted.

Graves was quiet. But quiet to him was like salt to wounds; it must hurt him.

"Do you want to know how they took it?"

For a moment, my eyes were on a swooping gull. Then, when his words trickled in, they turned to him. "You know?" I demanded. "You know how it was taken?"

"I do."

Then, suddenly, I realized. "Then wouldn't you know who did it?"

"I know most of the how, not necessarily the exact who," he answered. His head tilted as his gaze became studious again. "But I have my suspicions."

Everyone had suspicions. We carried them under tongues and dissolved them for quick use. We buried them between shoulder blades and strapped them to hips.

"More now," he added, almost pleased at whatever he'd found in my silence again. "Since your loyalty gives them away."

I reared as if hit. "My loyalty?"

"If it was anyone else, I think you would've told me."

"Have you not been paying attention?" I spat. "I have no loyalty!"

Graves' head stayed tilted like a damn dog. His eyes were prying, and his cigarette was burning, a muted glow in a darkening night. "You're more loyal than you know. And now I do know how they did it," he said thoughtfully, unable to hide his smugness. "It was only a theory, ninety percent sure, but now—now, it must be true. If it was them, then I'm ninety-nine percent sure how they did it."

"Oh, screw you, Graves." I spun, stomping away, my nails biting into stained palms.

"Well?" he hollered at my back. "Do you want to know?"

I came to a halt a dozen paces off, hair whipping my face. I shoved it away like I did so many things. And I stared for a moment over my shoulder. For that heart aching half-breath, I paused, considering it.

"Will it happen again?" I called back.

Graves looked confused. "What?"

"Will it happen again?" I repeated.

Then, the glint of understanding was as bright as his cigarette.

"You and I both know it will need to happen again," Graves replied, resigned yet smiling. "Someday, somewhere. You know what we do. In fact, we might just have to take a page out of their book."

I did know. So I didn't want to know.

"Then, no. I don't want to know."

"Why not?"

"Because Simon won't tell, but who's to say I won't?"

Who's to say I could do this again? My silence could really kill me if there was ever a next time.

Graves simply looked at me for a moment. Then he slowly nodded. "Y'know, if they knew—and if they knew how to stop it from happening again—they would put it in history books. People would study it for its ingenuity," Graves commented. "It was desperate, but it was brilliant for what was available."

I nodded, knowing brilliance was never in short supply at Whitehill. "Maybe they would admire it," I agreed. "But they can't. Not yet. That information won't see the public light of day until they know how to prevent it. And I suspect it will stay secret until it's all done."

"It will never be done," Graves asserted, snorting at my naivety. "And if it was, or if any of the truth ever came out, you know there's a chance there wouldn't be a Whitehill castle after that."

"If. If it ever ends. If it ever comes out. I trust it won't; I trust there will still be a 'castle' tomorrow," I returned. "Like you said, you have no reason to tell anyone."

"But you do?"

"I'm leaving, Graves. You won't see me again."

"Good." He nodded. "Goodbye, Eleanor."

Then I left him on that cliff.

I left him holding a painting I hoped was worth it, and I got into my car, and began to drive. Graves would return to his day job. Like Vanessa. Like August. They would track mysteries, write articles, and sit confidently at the top of their hills. They would move on.

Everyone would move on. The jacarandas would keep blooming. The petals would fall, rot, and be reborn. The museum would keep allowing visitors in to marvel its guts, the Whitehills would keep flexing control, maneuvering strings with experienced hands, and my sister would keep shining and shining. Simon might return to my apartment. Maybe he already had. Maybe he didn't, maybe he wouldn't, maybe he'd never come back. Maybe I was wrong in my faith—he could be with Agent Gallick right this very moment, expression stony as he recounted my crimes. Maybe he wasn't, maybe he could forgive me, and maybe we could go back.

But not now. Now, I had another package to stow until ready to be sent. If Simon returned tonight, he wouldn't see an apologetic woman cloudy with remorse, waiting for him.

He would see a blank wall, and broken glass, and a bin full of ash.

Sometimes, I think about what might've happened if I had truly talked to Vanessa that night at the fundraiser, or any night after. If I hadn't avoided her for months. I wonder what might've happened if I hadn't dodged Yolanda for so long, or if I had called Signore Eriberto earlier. What would've happened if I'd had the guts to point fingers? To exclaim accusations? To ask for forgiveness? Justice? Kindness?

Had I spooked Geraldine when I'd called Signore Eriberto? Had Geraldine wanted me found on scene that night? Was it some form of revenge?

I wonder what could've happened if I had seen myself as anything other than a villain.

Maybe we would have the Widow. Maybe we'd have our matriarch. Maybe I'd have Simon, or an answer to soothe the gaping wounds of open ended questions. Maybe I could know the ending.

Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if it'd been anyone else other than Simon. If it'd been a burly, elderly man who'd whipped Whitehill into shape, or a powerful, commanding woman like Agent Gallick turning the museum's security around. If it'd been anyone else—anyone other than the wholesome soul who'd haunted the grounds like he was searching for me, like he didn't know the curses he would lay on my lips with every kiss—what would've happened?

What would've been left if I hadn't fallen in love?

Sometimes I think of Simon.

I think of the man whose unfortunate timing and heart had ripped him apart; how he'd offered me even the broken pieces of himself in his devotion. Simon's love was so monumental I didn't used to think it existed outside of myths and folklore, outside of pages and skies. But now I knew. Now, I knew how much love was imbued in the beauty I saw everywhere I looked, how it flowed around us to create that very wonder. Now I knew love was something we were able to grasp, and have, and lose. Something we were able to break.

I wonder if he went back to my apartment. I wonder what his thoughts were if he did. I wonder if he thought I was coming back.

Did he ever tell anyone?

I don't know. I don't know what he did after he left that night.

Does he look for me? Did he ever search at all?

I'm not sure I want to know.

But I know I look for him.

I look for him in every stranger in every room, in every figure in every distance, and in every dark eye and wide grin I ever pass. I look for him in marble, and paint, and pages. I've tried to pry him from melodies and dig him out of lyrics. I look for him even as I run from him. God, how I love him.

But, god, how I know he loved me. Simon wanted calm, he wanted peace, he wanted me. He loved me. How awful I was for my crimes, my sins, my love. I wasn't ready for him.

Who would we be if we'd met even a day before I'd found out? A minute? A second? Would I still hold my love close, would I still love fireworks, would they not carve a hole in my chest as loud as their boom in the sky?

Simon had loved me. He'd asked for me, and all that I was. He hadn't known the extent of what he was asking. And when I'd given in, when I'd finally given my all to him, I hadn't been able to bear to know what he'd do. Like I'd needed to preserve what I'd known of Geraldine, guarding what was left of my idolatry, so had avoided asking the extent of her crimes—I'd needed to preserve this. The best way to preserve what was left of Simon and I was to never know what he thought of me. To never know what happened after I choked up globs of red lies and turned him blue. To never know all the ways I broke him. No, I wanted to never let him answer me with any more than his absence that night. I had watched him leave, and I hadn't stuck around. I am, after all, a creature of habit. We were, after all, never meant to be purple.

I knew Simon was a creature of habit, too. I thought about how Simon never truly took what he gave me back. He'd never asked for even one splinter of himself returned to him, not even when his heart had laid around my feet, in pieces.

In fact, I'd realized I had been wrong that night. I'd only realized later, as my car threaded exhaust through rolling cliffs, that Simon hadn't been reaching to take it back. He'd been reaching for me, not his heart. He'd left, but he hadn't taken it with him. He'd never tried to take it back. Never. It was as if Simon thought every fragment, every cloud of dust, and every shard was irreparably mine. Maybe it was because he'd held mine the same way—no, that was different, because he'd never dropped mine. He'd never had to. It was already broken when I'd given it to him. And even so, he'd never given mine back to me, either. He'd always held the pieces to his chest with familiar fingers, imprinted on my very soul.

Oh, lord, I could tell you I love him—but would you believe me?

If I told you I loved him, because it was what I imagined and learned love to be: painful and right, choking and soothing? Love was quiet and love was loud. Love was the ache where air met my lungs; love was the soggy soil that welcomed my footprint. I used to think I knew love, I knew it was a stranger. Before him, I'd seen its imprints of burned hands on bark, I'd seen its trails in the sky, I'd seen what it left but never looked it in the eye. Before, I thought I'd recognize love when I saw it because it wouldn't be known to me. That I'd know it when I saw it because it was unknown. Yet even now, after everything that'd happened, I still wasn't sure I knew love like Simon did.

I wasn't sure I knew me, either.

Not like he did.

To steal a Weeping Widow, I'd sacrificed so much. I sacrificed my friends, my family, my home. My sense of belonging, my pride, my peace. Now, I'd sacrificed Simon. But I never would've met him if the Widow hadn't been taken in the first place. It was cruel to know that.

And I know what you're hoping I'll say.

You want me to say I didn't sacrifice him completely, not really. You want me to say I didn't sacrifice love, that I got my happily ever after. But I never believed in happily ever afters outside of pages or paint. You want me to say I do, that I did, that I will. I'm sorry. I don't know. There are a lot of things I don't know.

But I know the cursed words that spill from karma's tongue; the blue that tinges lips in winter, the same shade as the flowers on my grandmother's porcelain. I know widows and willows, strong men and weak boys, I know strangers and fire alarms that didn't do what they were told. I know poppies and battlefields under chandeliers, canvases and marble, and that watery tears don't mix with oil paints. I know promises, and museums, and Whitehills.

I know it was never about the theft.

Maybe it was never about Geraldine, either.

But, above all, I wish it was about Simon. I really, really do.

To steal a weeping widow, I'd lost another. I have no widows to hold now. I have no poppies to lie in, nor promises to break. There are no more truths to hide anymore—but I have money in my pocket, and I have pain in my chest, and there are plenty of lies to hand out as I wish.

To steal a weeping widow, I wrote half my story.

I think I still have more story to tell, but I'm not sure if anyone other than me will ever hear it. There was only one other person I've ever wanted to know it, but to steal a weeping widow, I'd lost him, too.

To steal a weeping widow...

But, god, I'd do it again.

I would do it again just to love him like I did, as selfish as that is. I would lose him over and over just to have him for a single, lone moment.

I would burn those paintings. I'd burn every piece of art there ever was, to touch him again. To see him. Simon said he loved me and nothing was ever the same.

Yes, I'd do it again.

And again.

And again.

I'd go through it all again.

To steal a weeping widow.