The Painter’s Secrets: A short story by Marilyn Lara Puccio

Amanda rocked back and forth in the old, wooden chair on her breezy porch. She inhaled deeply the smell of the salty winds that rolled in haphazardly, caressing her bare shoulders and blowing her wispy curls away from her face. Her ears filled with the sounds of the surf reaching shore, recoiling again, and returning once more.

She let her bare feet graze the porch boards as she rocked. She sipped her chamomile tea, savoring the sweetness on her tongue, letting it sit in her mouth just before it cooled and she swallowed. The sounds of the seagulls above her head mingled perfectly with the ebb and flow of the ocean's dance. She loved her weekends at the beach house far away from the strangulation and pressures of her career.

She tried to remember a time when she had been happier than this second, but few came to mind. Maybe when she was a kid and her dad would let her help him fix the car, pointing to the engine’s parts and naming them, then quizzing her on it later. She smiled knowing she could still tell the parts of a car better than most guys her age! Maybe it was when her mom stirred the rice in the pot singing songs from the radio as she cooked, letting Amanda peek into the pot to watch the food cook before her eyes. A jolt of emotions choked her now, the distant images of her parents and how she longed to see them again, lingered in her thoughts.

She shook them off with the familiar scent from her steaming mug calming her mind. From her rocker, she stared at the painting that hung just inside on the wall facing the ocean. When she bought the house six months ago, her real estate agent Joan said the previous owners had all but abandoned the place and the painting had been left behind. Joan said a lot of people thought they could take on this big house, then regretted their decisions. She said this as if she expected Amanda to follow suit, as well. Joan was in her late 50s and she seemed either bothered by Amanda’s bold purchase, or envious of it. Amanda didn’t let Joan or anyone get to her. She knew she was young and that buying a house was not what most people expected someone her age to do.

After Amanda signed the papers, every one of her weekends was spent at the beach house cleaning, scrubbing, and throwing out things, while saving all sorts of odds and ends that fit her decor. Now the house was almost exactly as she had dreamed it could be. Every inch had a touch of her style and her history and room for her future. The only thing of substance that remained of the old home's previous life was the painting.

It was obvious it had been painted, almost to scale, right from that porch where she now rocked. She once stood in the extreme right of the old porch trying to look through the artist's eyes as he, or she, lay brush to canvas. In the foreground, there was the glimpse of a corner of a blue, wood table and on it rested a bejeweled wood box with a clasp that looked to be made of brass. It made Amanda think of a child’s crafts class where you are given a bottle of Elmer's glue and some sparkly stones to stick onto a wood, or cardboard box for Mother's Day. Only one side of the table and the box could be seen in the painting up close, but the artist took great pains to add amazing detail to it. Each stone had reflective lights and shadows in different shades in all the right places. The burned reds and charred yellows jumped out at her. The blues seemed to come right from the depths of the sea behind it. You could almost feel the rays of that day's sun coming through and landing on the wood slats on the porch. You could almost reach into the painting and caress each stone and the clasp on the wood box.

The blue table was long gone. No trace of it remained, nor the box on top of it. Perhaps the blue table was used to hold the artist's brushes, Amanda thought. In the background of the painting was the ocean, its soft curves and sharp edges becoming more familiar to Amanda these days. Its mood swings, unpredictable and temperamental, becoming more a part of her inner workings. The tide’s arrivals and departures becoming more of a timepiece by which Amanda lived her life.

But the part of the painting that intrigued her the most was not the box, or the table. It was the role of the ocean at its core and the human in its center. In the deep middle you could see the low-lying slate gray rock that stood there still, in the cushion of its sugary sand world. How old was the painting? The skies and the ocean remained unaffected by the years, it seemed to Amanda. Their aging secrets were well hidden and she couldn't gauge from any alarming changes, when it had actually been done. On the rock was a woman. She was in a billowy summer wrap in sky blue resting one hand in an awkward stance. She was holding her slim body, silhouetted by the fabric's folds, away from the rock, as if trying to avoid collapsing onto it. Her shoulders were buckled into each other and her head hung low into her neck. Her brown hair was flowing in the wind; her face was turned away toward the waters. And although Amanda could not see the woman's expression, her body spoke volumes and she knew without a doubt that the woman was weeping, her salty tears mingling and getting lost in the vast sea. Amanda saw that her sadness was great.

The artist forgot to sign the painting, or perhaps chose not to sign it. Amanda's curiosity didn't allow her to just let it go. Joan told her the couple that lived there before leaving the beach house, did not own the painting. They too came upon it when they arrived and left it behind when they decided to go. "Trent and Fatema Unger were here for less that two years. I don't really have any additional history about this painting or this house, Amanda. I have been the broker for it just once for the Ungers," Joan had said to her last time they spoke before the closing. "You're welcome to dispose of it, if you wish."

Amanda had no intention of disposing of this painting she had become entangled in its mystery. She had replaced almost everything in the beach house, but the haunting art piece remained. Each time she walked by it, some days covered in dust and grime from all her work, she had to stop and stare. It was as if she had been asked to preserve it and to keep it safe. She didn't know how or why, she just knew throwing it away was not an option. When she dusted around the house, she took extra care dusting just the area around the painting, almost afraid that if she stroked the front with her feather duster, the painting would vanish before her eyes.

The following weekend, Amanda left the city in the pre-dawn hours hoping to beat summer traffic. She needed to spend more time in her new house. She had given herself this house as a gift for all of her years of hard work. At 34 years old, she had already gone far in her career, but she forgot to date and have a social life. For Amanda, there were no children to care for, no husband to share her time with. It was just Amanda and her old dog, Othello, a mixed breed she had rescued over three years ago.

She had asked for time off at work, a whole week! It seemed almost sinful to her, but deep down she knew she deserved it! She needed time to enjoy her new home. And although she often thought she was irreplaceable at work, her manager Grant almost kicked her out the door, genuinely happy to see his star employee take a break.

Othello approved of the beach house. The woman at the rescue shelter had said that he was a fun-loving dog. He was part American Eskimo and part “crazy ass mutt”. Those were the shelter woman’s exact words. Othello is mostly white with spots of beige and brown. Truth is Othello is just a big ball of love and Amanda couldn’t be happier that she chose him. At first he was just so she could have a watchdog, but now he was more like a great companion.

Othello became absolutely giddy when she loaded up her car each weekend to head out. He instantly knew, based on what she packed, that they were headed there. Amanda was sure Othello loved the freedom. It filled her with guilt, knowing that she left him stuck in the apartment Monday through Friday, until she got home each night. She knew he preferred the sandy walks and open wet marshlands of the house's surroundings. Weekends were their time now. Othello had no idea they would be there a full week. “You’re in for a treat, old boy!” she told the hyper dog. How could he not love it there? They would run on the beach and Othello would occasionally jump into the Atlantic, bringing back with him that lingering wet dog scent she hated, but loved him all the same for.

At night, when only the moonlight lit the dark skies, Amanda would push open the screen door and step out onto her rocking chair on the porch. It was like being all alone on the planet. She would switch on the bug light and sit and breathe the sea-scented air deep into her lungs. She would shut her eyes and listen to the repetitive sound of flying bugs meeting their demise on her bright, blue lamp, the sea dance providing background music. "Dumb bugs," she thought, "Don't you learn by the death of your relatives?"

When it got too dark to sit out there, or when the wave’s soft whispers were making her drowsy, Amanda would signal to Othello that it was time to go inside. He would lift his butt high up in a downward dog stance and lead the way back in through his doggie door. Amanda would acknowledge him with a pat to his fluffy head. She would sigh and push herself off the rocking chair, calling after him: “I’m coming rug rat!” The slight rip of her skin, sticking to the bottom of the chair where her shorts ended, made her realize how long she had been out there. She would shut the doors and windows and turn off the lights, leaving only the house's outside lanterns on to mark her place on the earth.

Once inside, Amanda took a book off her bookcase, the one she had marked with a Post-it note, and she would gather herself in a blanket on her sofa to read. Othello jumped right up next to her, as if personally invited, and laid his furry paws on her legs. He was staking claim on her, his black, wet nose snuggled by her hand. Absently, Amanda’s free hand went to that space between Othello’s ear and forehead and she scratched as the dog let himself fall right to sleep.

Every now and then, at the end of a sentence or chapter, she would glance up again at the painting. Sometimes she swore she heard the cry from the woman and looked up just as she went silent. Once, she had even tried to google the painting on her laptop to no avail. She lacked a name or artist, so it was kind of slim pickings to get information. Description will only get you so far on Internet search engines. She was frustrated, but not yet hopeless. "Come on, Othello...time for bed." The two walked up the stairs and into Amanda's spacious loft bedroom. Othello quickly made his way to his checkered green bed on the floor as Amanda pulled back the comforter on her bed and slid in.

As sleep overtook her, she thought maybe a small prayer would help. She quickly asked God or someone in the grander universe to help her find the artist. She thought it was selfish, what with all the world's troubles, to ask for such a thing, so she didn't want to ask God directly. "Maybe one of his helpers," she said.

The next morning Amanda walked Othello around the beach, as was becoming their habit. When he was good and tired, they went back and she left him home. She walked to her light blue Toyota and jumped in. She made the quiet drive into town through the lone two-lane road, taking note of all of the beauty of her sleepy beach town. She had to fetch a few essentials at the main store and didn't mind this drive one bit.

When she arrived, it always surprised her – the store’s powerful smells of cheeses, saltwater and fishermen. The floorboards of every narrow aisle creaked and the three old glass-front refrigerators had condensation covering most of what was inside. This was certainly not the city, she thought. For this bit of shopping, she would have been hitting up Whole Foods, not this Ma and Pa Kettle place.

She picked up a wicker basket for her things: a quart of milk, eggs and two fresh baked rolls because the faint smell of warm bread was making her hungry. She was making herself a cup of coffee at the self-serve area, when it occurred to her that old Jake and Elizabeth Shummer had been a staple of that small New England town for years. They owned the store and knew pretty much all the comings and goings. Surely they knew something, or someone who could give her the information she wanted about the painting that hung so prominently in her house. With her newly made cup of java, her half-full basket swinging in the crook of her elbow, Amanda turned on her heel and walked to the counter determined for an answer.

Jake was busy with a customer, but Elizabeth sat on a high bar stool off to the side flipping through a magazine. “Excuse me, hello…my name is Amanda Cooper. I bought the big, yellow house off Ocean Road. It’s the last one before the water. Do you know it?” Elizabeth looked up at Amanda, her watery gray eyes slung low with heavy skin, her pale face showing the lines of too many years, her tightly wound gray and white curls showing the crease of plastic rollers and comb lines. “Yes, dear. I know the house. I know who you are, too. Was wondering when you were going to get around to introducing yourself.” Amanda felt scolded and quickly mumbled an apology. How many weekends had she been in there? She reasoned that she was a city girl, after all, and as such wasn't into walking into public places announcing her status and credentials.

Elizabeth’s warm smile eased the awkward moment. “Welcome to our small town. How d’ya like it so far?” Amanda happily told Elizabeth she was a weekender for now, but that the plan was for her and Othello to be here this whole week and, one day, permanently. She told Elizabeth they loved it. The old woman smiled proudly, as if she herself owned the town. “You married a fella named Othello?” she asked, curiosity peaking on her face. “No, ma’am. Othello is my dog.” Amanda jumped right to the matter at hand, effectively detouring Elizabeth’s line of questioning.

“I was a little curious about my home’s history. Is there anything you can tell me about it?” Elizabeth straightened up in her seat. She looked to Jake, who was busy packaging a customer’s goods. It struck Amanda as odd that a woman would still, in the year 2009, look to her husband for approval, or whatever it was, before answering a simple question. Amanda herself was so independent of all ties; it just didn’t click with her. Then again, Jake and Elizabeth seemed old school and Amanda was realizing that this town was full of all sorts of quirky, old-fashioned habits and rituals.

“Jake, when you’re done, dear, could you kindly help this young lady? Her name is Amanda Cooper.” Jake turned to Amanda and she smiled her best and warmest smile. Something told her that Elizabeth revealing her name to Jake was just a formality. He probably knew exactly who she was, too.

Jake was a tired looking man. He looked more beat down than Elizabeth. Amanda didn’t think getting information from him was going to be easy. “Is there anything you can tell me, Ms. Elizabeth?” Amanda said again throwing out a line for the woman. “I’m no good at storytelling, honey. Let Jake tell you. He’s got some memory and he knows just about anyone and everyone in all the neighboring homes to the shop. He's been here his whole life!”

So, Amanda settled down defeated by the old woman’s words and waited for Jake to address her. She nursed her coffee, until the milk she used made it grow cold. Jake waited until the store was just about empty. Then he started to stock things neatly. He waited until Amanda was tired and worried about Othello. His waiting seemed deliberate, like he hoped if he waited long enough, she would disappear. When he realized she wasn’t going, old Jake sighed and pulled up a high stool next to the one where Amanda and Elizabeth were sitting.

“So, young lady,” he said, not looking right at her. His comment seemed to have no direction. Jake looked at Elizabeth and she at him, a kind of marriage chat without words they did in front of her. Amanda felt like an intruder. Jake’s bony, wiry, hands slid and folded between his wobbly knees. His forehead became further riddled with deep lines and the sad smile he dispensed for his customers vanished from his face. “You bought the old Franks’ place. How do you like it in that house?” Amanda jerked up when she heard the name. “Frank? I thought the previous owners were named Unger,” she said to him. Jake seemed to have ignored or not heard her. “You got a husband or something?” Amanda blushed. It was her normal reaction whenever anyone asked that oddly common but insanely private question. “No, sir. I am single.” Her voice came out apologetic, as if there was some shame to her status. In this town, she thought, there probably was.

“Frank. The family that first lived there long ago was named Frank – Augustine, Adele and their daughter, Esmeni Frank. Before them, it was just a sandy nook by the sea. Empty space for winds and seagulls. One day, construction began and that lovely home emerged. Everyone wanted to know who would live there. When they arrived, everyone fell in love with Adele. And when the baby came, everyone loved her, too. We all called her Addy and the baby we called Meni, for short. Augustine was what folks here liked to call a troubled genius. He always seemed troubled by something, but when he picked up a paintbrush…well, let’s just say the man had talent. We never gave him a nickname. Just didn't seem right for him.”


“So Augustine Frank painted that ocean with the woman that I have in the house still?” Amanda asked, visibly interrupting the flow of memories in Jake’s head. “Hmm, you say something?” he responded, snapping back out of his tale. “Yes, sorry. You were saying?” she said to him, so he would go on.

“Yes, Miss Cooper, I do believe that painting on your wall is one of Augustine’s pieces. And the woman in it is definitely Addy. Addy and Meni were Augustine’s favorite subjects. They were in just about every single thing that man ever painted. That house was always cluttered with canvases in different stages of drying. He painted in oils. A real artist!”

At this comment, Amanda stopped Jake by gently laying a hand on his elbow. “Wait, there are more paintings? I only have the one and there is no baby present anywhere in it. How long ago did they live here? How old was Esmeni?” Amanda realized she was speaking very fast and Jake seemed taken aback by the speed and tone her voice was taking. Clearly, fast talkers were not the norm here. Back in the city, she couldn't get the words out fast enough. Elizabeth spoke, “Honey, calm down. You’re getting so worked up! Jake will tell ya everything you wanna know!” She said this to Amanda in a firm but kind way.

Jake allowed for a moment, as Amanda settled down. He continued, “Augustine and Addy lived here when it was known as Wernersville. Name here changed about 15 years ago. Had nothing to do with the Franks, just politics, I guess. Anyhow, they arrived in that house, oh, what would you say, Liz, was that 1955, or ’56? Liz here was still a kid in junior high school. We weren’t even courting, yet.” Elizabeth stared blankly at Jake, so he went on. “Anyway, they got to that house still in their wedding clothes. I remember the day, too. I was off on one of my dad’s deliveries. He owned this store before me and I was his delivery boy. Folks then didn’t all have cars to get ‘round in. I saw the happy couple get out of a brand new 1955 shiny black Plymouth Belvedere. Man, that car was a beauty! That’s right it was 1955! I can remember the TV ad, too! Plymouth proclaimed that the Belvedere was a great new car for the young in heart,” Jake said, a glimmer of recognition filling his face. “Anyway, those two Frank kids sure were young in heart. I guess I was about 17 at the time. I would say they weren’t that much older. People said he came from old money. They said she never saw the house before that day, but that Augustine had it built special just for his new bride.” Jake looked away for a moment, and then fiddled with something on the counter behind them. When he had allowed himself time to gather his thoughts, he went on.

“She was a vision, that Addy. Her brown hair hung long and wavy, like a mermaid’s. In the sun, it was mirror shiny all the time. Her skin was flawless as poured milk and her full, pouty mouth seemed to have its own color to it, so she never needed any of that lipstick stuff. When she looked at Augustine, her big, chestnut eyes dreamy with love, it was obvious there was no other man in her radar that could hold a stick to him. Liz never knew I had a crush on the lady, but seeing as she was married, it wasn’t no competition for my heart. Augustine was just about as crazy about her as any man I ever saw. You never saw a happier pair. The day they married and got there, they parked that car just a ways off the beach and ran up to it. Then Augustine swooped his little wife off her feet and ran up the porch steps into the house with her. I watched from my daddy’s delivery truck as her white dress trailed behind them, disappearing behind the closing door. I wondered, too, as any teenage boy would, what was going on with them inside that house.

Afterward, everyone knew them as the ‘children playing house’ because of their childlike wonderment with all they encountered. They were always running on the beach and always kissing and hugging, too. With all that kissing and hugging, a year later, Addy was waddling around the town, belly protruding proud as anyone. Little Esmeni soon came into their lives. She was a beauty just like her momma. For the next three years, life was just about perfect for the Frank family.”

Jake stopped and Amanda could see by the goofy smile and distant look in his eyes that Jake had transported himself to another time and place. He was actually in another day, the day in 1955 when a girl name Adele and a guy named Augustine had arrived in Wernersville to start a life. “Jake? What happened to the Franks?” And just like it had come, the smile, the goofy look, and the joy in Jake’s face simply slid right from out of his face and body and he slumped on the stool. It looked to Amanda like Jake was in pain.

For a long moment the three of them sat there silent. No one said a word, until the bell atop the store’s entrance jingled announcing a customer and startled them back from their trance. “I’ll tend to it, Jake”, Elizabeth said, hopping almost too quickly from her perch. Seemed to Amanda like the old woman couldn’t wait to get away from there and she was quite limber. A woman who looked to be in her 40s walked in with a young boy in tow. Soon Elizabeth had engaged them in idle town chatter. Jake stared after his wife for a second, then turned back to Amanda. When Amanda saw she had his full attention again, she repeated her question. “Jake, what happened to the Franks? What happened to all of Augustine’s other paintings? Did he sell them or take them when they left?”

Jake paused before responding to her. “Miss Cooper,” he said, measuring the weight of his words and this truth carefully. “The painting in your home is very telling of what became of the Franks. I know it. I once saw it up close when the house lay empty for a year. Liz and I were on the beach and the back doors of the abandoned house were swung open. We couldn’t resist. We went in and saw it on the floor, all dusty and propped up against an old chair. Liz and I just stared. Liz was crying because the whole of that painting is a testament to its artist and his life, so full of unbearable sadness.”

Amanda could no longer stand Jake’s running around of the real story. Elizabeth finished with the woman and boy and returned unnoticed to her place. Amanda asked Jake again, point blank and more forcibly, letting the hard career city girl in her peek out a bit. “Mr. Shummer, what happened to them?”

Jake looked Amanda right in her eyes and responded. “The story goes that one day Augustine was painting his wife’s nude body. They were by the front entrance of the house, not the porch that faces the ocean. That is where Augustine painted, his studio he called it. People who’ve lived there since call it an office.” Amanda knew it well. She used it as Othello’s playroom and a small library, too. “Esmeni was asleep in her nursery at the back of the house, that extra room by the formal dining room that seems to have no purpose. That was Meni’s room. She was three at the time. So, the always-passionate couple got caught up in the moment and were said to be making love right in his studio. Esmeni must have woken at some point and climbed out of her bed. No one knows if she searched for, or saw her parents. She simply walked silently out of the house and toward the ocean she knew so well. She wasn’t afraid of it, mind you. She and Addy went practically every day, leaving Augustine alone to paint. A couple of neighborhood kids were just up on the main road on their bicycles. One said he saw a small kid, like a baby, walking to the water, but thought surely a parent must be right on the baby’s tail. They rode away. Them two kids are grown men now. They’re both gone from here, but people who still keep in touch say they live with an unbearable guilt from that day. By the time Addy and Augustine noticed the baby was missing, it was too late. They searched frantically for Esmeni, and then solicited the help of the town’s folk and the police. I was there looking with my daddy and my brother, Josh. Mom was home praying for Meni’s safe return. Liz and her family were part of the search, too. Meni seemed to have vanished.

Addy just about lost her mind. She blamed herself. She blamed Augustine. She blamed the ocean. Exactly one week later, the small lifeless body of Esmeni washed up on the shore closer to the town. One of the patrolmen found her. Everyone said it was a good thing Esmeni didn’t wash up again at her parents’ doorstep because it would have been too much for Addy. They had Augustine ID the body. It just about killed the man. Esmeni Frank was buried two days later. The entire Wernersville community showed up for the funeral. Everyone offered to help Addy and Augustine get by with promises of food and company. My family tried, too. But the promises dwindled to nothing because Addy’s inability to function in social situations dissuaded folks here who wanted to help.

For Addy, losing Esmeni was the end of the world. She cried and screamed all the time. Her guttural rants made folks stop what they were doing and wallow in her pain. It spread like a cancer across the town. In the middle of the night, if you lay perfectly still in your bed, her screams carried through the air into everyone’s home. The town lost a lot of business that summer. No one was in the mood to travel and no one wanted to stay in Wernersville. Addy’s sadness permeated everything. We started to be known as ‘that town where the baby drowned’. It was bad.”

Jake took a deep breath, realizing he hadn’t been breathing all along as he retold the tale he had long tried to forget. He looked at Amanda who was weeping by then. “You sure you okay, Miss?” She nodded, unable to form words from the grief in her heart. She didn’t know these people, but suddenly it was like she lived with them. With her hand, she gestured for him to go on.


“That’s really all, Miss Cooper. Augustine couldn’t cope with losing his daughter, but also with staying behind and watching his beloved Addy fall apart. He did everything that came to mind to try and salvage tiny parts of the whole, passionate, beautiful woman he loved. But for Addy there was no coming back. One night, the family from the house up the road from them saw a fire on the beach and called police. Augustine was alone on the beach making a bonfire with his paintings. When they approached him, the distraught and devastated man told them that the paintings of Addy and Esmeni made his wife sad and so he had to destroy them. He said this matter of fact and looked at the officers like they should also agree he was right. By then Liz and I were engaged. All we could think about, when we heard of his bonfire, was how terrible it was that all that work, labors of love on canvas, were destroyed. There were no photographs of Esmeni, just her father's paintings and now those were gone too. Everyone said that Augustine stopped painting the afternoon he lost his child. Then one day he was seen out by the sea that stole his child, burning all of his art works.” Jake shook his head. The shame and sadness of all that was lost was soon falling like iced raindrops all over Amanda’s body.

Through her sniffles she managed to ask how her painting, the one that hung in her home now, had survived. “Well, remember when I told you Esmeni and Addy were his favorite subjects?” Amanda nodded again. “Was Esmeni in that painting?” he asked. Amanda mumbled a no as Jake nodded. His question was rhetorical she now understood. “It was the only thing Augustine every painted after his daughter died. He needed to somehow capture the sadness filling their lives and overwhelming Addy. He tried to freeze it for all time. You know, Miss Cooper, someone once told me that Augustine’s pride had gotten the best of him and that he had secretly stashed away a few of his paintings in hidden compartments in the skeleton of that house, so Addy would never find them. He was, after all, the one who designed and had the house built. Surely he knew of all its nooks and crannies, places even she wouldn’t think to look. Sadly, Augustine's plan was to rediscover them with Addy, once she was in a better state of mind. But to finally answer your question, Miss Cooper, about what happened to the Franks.

"On the first anniversary of Esmeni’s disappearance, Addy tried to hang herself. The doctor in town saw her and told Augustine that staying in that house was bad for her mental health. True to his unyielding wish to protect his Addy, that night, unceremoniously, Augustine Frank put his fragile wife into that same less shiny, older Plymouth Belvedere and drove away. They left everything behind. When some of the women in town went in to clean up, most left weeping seeing how Addy and Augustine never touched a thing in Esmeni's room and it was as it had been the night the babe climbed out and never returned. Augustine and Addy didn’t say good-bye to a soul. No one ever saw or heard from the Franks again. It was the end of 1959. A new decade was approaching. Liz said maybe that was a good sign and that Augustine would try to start over with her some place with less awful memories. Way I see it; you can’t ever run far enough from losing a child. Since then, I guess maybe four or five families have come and gone from that house. Some stay long, some stay just a little while. Liz and I married, had our kids, sent them to school, now we’re alone again and never once did we set eyes on Addy or Augustine. Ain’t nobody ever come by here asking about the home's past, or the painting neither. Some folks who’ve lived there before you put the art piece up on their wall; some just stored it away in the attic. No one thought it was good enough to take from that house. Guess it’s become like a part of the real estate now. You’re the first one ever come alone to live in such a big place. You’re also the first to want to know about its past. That’s all I got for you Miss Cooper. Hope you got what you came for.” Jake stood up then and walked away, back to his counter. He left his wife’s side and went back to his undisturbed life – except for that awful event in the mid 1950s that Amanda's curiosity had brough all back to him like a torrential storm. Elizabeth stood up then, too and went back to standing by Jake.

On her drive home from the main store that day, Amanda couldn’t and didn’t want to control the flow of tears. The blur from her eyes was worse than a heavy snowstorm on her windshield. The overwhelming truths of her new home took the air from her lungs. Her heart, her mind and her body ached for Addy, for Augustine and his art and for poor little Esmeni. She was never taught that the ocean was equal parts beauty and danger. She was innocent in her wish to walk to its shores, as she did with her mother all the time. She was happy there and knew nothing more. And though Amanda knew she shouldn’t do this to herself, she still tried to imagine the terror Esmeni felt when the water carried her away and she couldn’t return to shore. Gasping for air, Amanda held tight to the steering wheel trying to get home.

Othello came storming toward Amanda when she turned the key in the door. She had been gone much longer than expected and hadn’t left the screen door open so he could get through the doggie door. She absentmindedly let him wander out to do his business. She slumped on the wing chair right across the room from the painting, exhausted from all she had heard. The visit to Jake and Elizabeth’s was more than she bargained for. She got more than she asked for. She pushed herself up and walked to the painting. She was still crying. She pawed gently at the painting, placing a finger on the lost shape of Addy, willing Addy to give her a reason to stay. Are you still alive, Addy? Is Augustine? Did you have more babies, or did the sadness kill you both?

Suddenly her beloved home had become this trap of despair and devastation. She wanted no part of it. How could she possibly stay and enjoy it now? She walked to the art studio turned dog room and library. "This is where he painted and where they made love," she said aloud. She walked out to the porch to rock in her chair. This family, despite all others who came after, is the only true family that belongs here and that is probably still here in ways Amanda had yet to discover.

Othello circled about and then rested by her feet. Dusk was falling. She stood and walked to the porch railings and leaned forward. How long had she stared at it in there? The strength of the ocean was in front of her now. Esmeni was in her mind. She wished Augustine had left paintings of his baby around and others of Addy. She wanted to see how Augustine translated his love onto his canvas. Of course, she understood why he did what he did, but still.

Suddenly, Jake’s words came back at her in a force that almost knocked her down. “You know, Miss Cooper, someone once told me that Augustine’s pride had gotten the best of him and that he had secretly stashed away a few of his paintings in hidden compartments in the skeleton of that house, so Addy would never find them.”

That was it!! She would search every corner and inch of that old house until she found them! She would unearth all of the secrets it held since the night Addy and Augustine took off in the pitch black darkness in 1959. She would find out what Esmeni looked like. Then, when she was certain all of the secrets of her beach house were spilled like jelly beans from a large apothecary jar, only then would she make her decision. Would she remain in the house she had grown to love, or leave it behind like so many others with its sad, unkind past and the lost promises of love ever after?

Her sleep was troubled that Saturday night into Sunday. Images and voices from a family she had never met paraded though her dreams. At one point she and Addy rocked in facing chairs, her face obscured by the shadows playing with the lights of the night. Their teacups touching on the edges of the blue table sat cooling a bit in the hot summer night. Addy asked her for promises she agreed to without thought. It was unlike her to make promises like this, but with Addy, she felt she had no choice. When she woke Sunday, she was still numb and swollen with the knowledge she wished she didn’t have. But now I have to own this, she told herself. I have to own what I know of these people and try to make sense of it. Otherwise, I won’t be OK in this house, or any other. Sunday came and went and Amanda never even sat outside on the porch. She read. She let Othello come and go as he pleased. She fed him and she fed herself. Then night came once more and in her dreams she revisited Addy and this time, Augustine. Both still looked lost in despair for their beloved Esmeni. Both sought her assistance in putting a period at the end of their sad tale.

On the first Monday morning in a long time, in which Amanda Cooper was not racing for her train in pumps and a suit, she rolled out of bed with a real purpose. The sun flooded her bedroom with light. A good sign, she thought. She felt energized and prepared for the task at hand. It was like at work, when she and her colleagues in the publishing company went after an acquisition with fierce aggressiveness. However, this time what she was after was peace of mind for herself and all of the characters surrounding the home's existence. Still in her pajamas she set out to accomplish what she promised Addy in the painting. “I will unearth everything in this house that was once a happy place for you. I will make things a little bit right by honoring your memory and that of your baby. I will set your husband free of all his demons and let his beautiful art be seen again. I will let his love for you and Esmeni be seen through his art! I will give you back some of the life you lost here. And when I have recovered all of the pieces to your fractured puzzles, Addy, I will set it to words and tell the world your story so that little Esmeni will live eternally.”

With that promise made aloud to no one, but Othello as a witness, Amanda set out to find it all. She walked up the narrow steps to the attic of her home. When she stood up, looking to all the sides full of old boxes and cobwebs she made a decision. “I’ll start in the far right corner of this attic and not stop until I am in the far right corner of the basement.” And then Amanda went to work because she was given a mission and like all assignments handed to her, she went at it with all she had inside her.