Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
A week later, Mia found the photograph.
Of course she did.
Children can locate the one object adults most want left alone.
Vincent’s study door was open because contractors were installing new secure file storage.
I was nearby.
Mia was coloring.
Or so I thought.
Then:
“Who’s this?”
I turned.
She was holding a silver frame.
My heart stopped.
Vincent stood near the desk.
He went completely still.
The photograph showed a young woman laughing beside him.
Vincent looked maybe thirty.
She had dark curls and one hand on his chest.
Neither looked afraid of anything.
“Mia.”
I reached for the frame.
Vincent said:
“It’s fine.”
He took it from her.
For several seconds, he stared at the picture.
Then:
“Her name was Lucia.”
“Your wife?”
Mia asked.
I nearly apologized.
Vincent nodded.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“She died.”
Mia’s face became serious.
“My daddy died too.”
I froze.
Vincent looked at me.
I rarely discussed my husband at work.
Adam Hayes had died in a construction accident when Mia was eleven months old.
No life insurance worth mentioning.
No grand inheritance.
Just medical bills from the hospital trying to save him and a daughter who knew him through photographs.
Mia asked Vincent:
“Do you miss her?”
“Yes.”
“Lots?”
“Lots.”
She thought.
Then hugged his leg.
I nearly stopped breathing.
Vincent looked down at her.
His hands remained at his sides.
He did not know what to do.
Then Mia released him.
“That helps.”
She returned to her crayons.
Vincent stared at me.
“Does it?”
“Sometimes.”
He looked at Lucia’s photograph.
His face changed.
Not enough to call it grief.
Enough.
That day I learned Lucia had died twelve years earlier from an aneurysm.
Unexpected.
Vincent had not remarried.
No children.
I understood something about the silent estate after that.
The house had not always been silent because people feared Vincent.
Some of it was grief he never reorganized.
None of that excused his world.
It simply made him human.
May you like
Those are not the same thing.
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