Page 7 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

After the funeral, Calla broke into his shed. It had been barred to them as children, but now, everything that was his belonged to them. Everything material, at least.Tu?n’s desk had been stacked with printouts of everyLýpainting, includingBlue Mirror. Curious enough, but then, amid all the bills and correspondence, the cinnamon gum wrappers and Vietnamese newspapers from the grocery in Madison, she found a manila folder. Inside were the sketch and the letter from 1945, along with the business card of a Dr. Paul Quân, a professor of art history at Rathmore College, the sisters’ alma mater.

Calla recognized the sketch right away. It couldn’t be only a coincidence thatTu?nhad been obsessed withBlue Mirrorjust as it was due to arrive at Vivi’s workplace. It had to be the thread of fate, connecting all of them.

Calla hurried to say, “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be pissy about it. Me and him, talking again.”

“Because I remember the slaps, the way the belt felt on my shins—”

“That was once. He apologized afterward—he was drinking—”

“He wasalwaysdrinking. Remember how we had to eat at Wayland’s house nearly every night because there was nothing in the fridge at home but beer? How I had to lie about my age and start washing dishes at fourteen because every cent he made went to his booze or his pill habit?”

“It was the accident at the mill and Mom and—well, he was sorry for all of it, Bee, he really was.”

“Sorry.” The word tasted like dirty water in her mouth. “Why didn’t he ever ‘make amends’ with me, then?”

Calla twitched her lips, gumming around the words she wanted to say versus the ones she should say. Emotions played across her face, each easily tracked by Vivi, who once lived by their unreliable flux. Pride, that their father had felt closest to her. Dismay that Vivi should be hurt by her actions. Annoyance that she should have to keep apologizing for Tu?n. That one, Vivi could empathize with. All their lives, the sisters had been trying to find ways to smooth out the edges of the truth, tumbling it over and over again like a rock in the creek bed, until it came out polished. Unrecognizable.

“But would you have forgiven him?” she finally asked. “Would you have even picked up the phone if he’d called?”

Vivi didn’t answer. Outside, a slat of lightning fell across a bruised sky. Rain pounded on the rooftop, its tinny cadence poking holes through her thoughts. Her eyes returned again and again to the sketch.

How could her father have learned aboutBlue Mirror? It wasn’t one ofLý’s better-known works. Furthermore, to most,Lýwould be considered an obscure painter, especially within the shiny halls of the Surrealistgreats. Each question spawned another, until Vivi felt herself losing grip on what was fact and what was speculation.

Calla tapped the edge of the sketch. “Look at it. It’s not acopy. It’s an artist’s study. K. P.Lýsketched it, he must have.”

Vivi pored over the grain of the paper. She wanted to put it under a microscope to examine the fiber, the light frottage within the charcoal. She’d handled archival documents before, many much older than this, but there was something about this sketch that arrested her attention. She felt Calla was wrong in one thing. It didn’t seem like a study, one with ghost marks and revisions, signs of a generative work. There was no hesitation in the strokes, which were sure and determined, as if the artist were working from memory. But if that was the case, why wouldLýleave the faces bare? What was it about them that hauntedhim?

“Why did Dad have the sketch?” Vivi asked. “And the letter, for that matter?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? I think he was going to tell me.Us. Before—”

“What is it you want from me, exactly?”

“I want you to find this offering with me. Whatever it is. Wherever it’s hidden.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Let’s go see Dr. Quân and figure out whatBlue Mirrormeant to Dad. Maybe they corresponded. Maybe they knew each other. Aren’t you dying to find out?”

Vivi had hoped that her father’s death would serve as a padlock to the past, barring the things she didn’t want to remember. But now Calla wanted to bring the trouble back to light. The irony was that if the sketch and letter hadn’t been found inTu?n’s shed, Vivi wouldn’t have hesitated to dive into the mystery. It would have energized her. But knowing thatBlue Mirrorwas connected to her father made it impossible for her to examine the clues as an impartial scholar. She would have to involve herself and, since the day she’d left Deer Creek, she’d vowed that she would never again let herself be pulled back intoTu?n’s miseries.

“Why not just hire an investigator or go see Quân yourself? You don’t need me for this.”

“No one I know understands art history like you. And you understand our family, all theshit. No one will care as much as we will. And Dad said he wanted both of us to help him. You and me, Bee.”

Cute as a button, busy as a bee,idioms that May had ascribed to each. Now the sisters’ pet nicknames, sacred and private, evoked images of children on the run. Dark woods stiff with frost, want sailing through their veins, a nameless threat nipping at their heels. Not so different, then, from their reality. The nickname did its job; it softened Vivi, if only marginally.

Yet a wave of resentment kept the curiosity at bay. Calla andTu?n, allies. And her, outside of it all, the spectator brought in at the last moment, even though she’d spent her life keeping Calla safe from him. That was thanks for you.

“No, Calla,” she said finally. “I don’t want any part of this.”

“Why not?”

“We buried Dad. We left Deer Creek and said we’d never return. I kept that promise, even if you didn’t. Now I have a life here, with Samuel and Phoebe, my work.”

“Yourwork.” Calla gestured around the lab. “Sitting here with your cotton swabs, scrubbing away at some old varnish. Cleaning up after people when you should be the one on the walls of this stupid museum.”

“Not everyone wants to be you.”