Page 99 of The Summer Swap

“Cameron was experimenting a great deal back then. Style and medium. There were oils, pastels, watercolors, charcoal—he painted and drew nonstop and at that stage the style that everyone would later recognize as his, hadn’t fully developed.”

It was an extraordinary story, and one that impacted on more than just her father.

“But it was your painting.” Kristen was struggling to incorporate this new information into everything she’d always believed. She knew that her father had been discovered by an influential gallery owner—she didn’t know that it was her mother’s painting that had been the reason for that initial interest. Why hadn’t he ever told her that? She’d thought they were close. She’d thought she knew him well. Evidently not. And she also hadn’t really known her mother. “It could have been you. It should have been you. This is awful. I never knew. It must have been hard for you.”

“It was difficult for both of us. Cameron was insecure about his work in those early days—imposter syndrome isn’t uncommon among creative people. And the knowledge that it was my painting that had given him his big break nagged at him. He never felt good enough. Always felt he had to prove himself.” Cecilia stared at the basket of pastries that Todd had placed on the table. “That insecurity never really left him, although eventually he learned to live alongside it.”

“But he robbed you of an opportunity.” Thinking of it made Kristen feel terrible. She’d had no idea. Her father had never once mentioned it, even though they’d talked all the time.

“He didn’t rob me of anything,” Cecilia said. “It was a mistake, and I could have corrected it, but I chose not to.”

“But your career took a back seat to his.”

“That was my choice.” Cecilia twisted the ring on her finger. “I could have focused on my own work, but I preferred to focus on his. In those early days I still painted, but for my own pleasure. The truth is I would have hated the attention Cameron had to deal with, and also the pressure. I enjoyed being engaged with his career.”

“Dad must have felt guilty though.”

“He did. He needed constant validation. Constant confirmation that he was as good as people said he was. And he was aware of that.” Cecilia paused. “He used that as the excuse for the affair he had.”

Her father had an affair? Who was this man? Not the person she’d thought, clearly.

Kristen sat in silence while her mother told her all of it. The cottage. The woman who had been with her father. The subsequent pressure on their relationship.

And she felt guilty because she remembered how distraught she’d been when her parents had separated, and how difficult. She’d punished her mother when she hadn’t deserved it.

Emotions sat like a hard stone in her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t your burden to carry. Parents don’t always reveal every aspect of their relationship to their children.”

Kristen thought about the fact she hadn’t yet told Todd the truth about her reason for being here.

“But if I’d understood—”

“You were a child, Kristen. A child can’t possibly understand the nuances of adult relationships. And it was easier not to tell people. Easier to recover from it, and we did recover. We had many good years after that. Many.” Cecilia smiled. “A marriage can hit a rocky patch, but survive. It depends on whether what you have is strong enough to be saved. In the end, I wanted to save it. And so did your father. We never regretted that.”

Something about her mother’s tone and the look in her eyes made her wonder if the words were meant for Kristen.

Kristen thought about Theo. About their marriage. They’d definitely hit a rocky patch. Could their marriage be saved? Did she want that? Did Theo want that?

It all felt too much to deal with right now.

“What happened to The Girl on the Shore after that competition?”

“We refused to sell it to anyone. We wanted the mix-up to end right there, so we took it back to the cottage. We agreed that we would never mention it again and never again show the picture. Cameron already had more attention than he could handle, and everyone seemed to have forgotten about that particular painting. And for a while it was fine. No one ever asked about it, and moving forward, everything was Cameron’s work. All The Girl on the Shore really did was open a door. After a while we barely ever thought about that painting. We certainly never imagined that anyone else would remember it.”

“But Jeff knows about it. How?”

“I’m not sure, but Jeff’s father was at that first exhibition. He was an art critic with an interest in emerging artists. He saw The Girl on the Shore and from then on took a close interest in Cameron’s career. He saw that his subsequent work was different, and he had his suspicions. We had an answer for that of course. We said that Cameron had grown—matured. That his style had changed. And all that was true. But Jeff’s father raised it from time to time. He was sure it was someone else’s painting.”

Kristen pushed her plate away. She no longer felt like eating.

“And he told Jeff. So when Jeff asked me about it, he was basically digging for dirt.” She felt a sense of hurt and betrayal. She also felt foolish. She’d fallen for his charm. She’d believed that his interest in her was genuine. It hadn’t occurred to her for a moment that he was using her. She thought about the attention he’d paid her. The interest he’d shown.

She’d mistaken interrogation for intimacy.

How far would he have gone? Would he have slept with her to get the answers he’d been seeking? Maybe. And she’d been so lonely, so desperate for human connection that she wouldn’t ever have thought to question his motives.

“Jeff can’t know for sure,” Cecilia said. “And neither did his father. Whenever he asked, we said that the painting had been damaged years before and no longer existed. And because Jeff’s father would never let the subject go, we agreed we would destroy it. Cameron assured me that he had. When you told me on the night of the party that someone was asking about it, I panicked.”

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