Page 97 of The Seven Year Slip

39

I Knew You When

I sat down onone of the benches in front of van Gogh with a flask of wine and three of my best friends, and we all passed it around, sharing sips, as they sang happy birthday to me, and gave me presents. A romance book from Juliette—“It’s the latest Ann Nichols! I got it early, don’t tell anyone.”

And Drew and Fiona, they gave me an elegant and beautiful passport holder.

“Because you should use it,” Fiona said with a smile.

I hugged them all, thankful to have friends like these, who were there for me when I didn’t need them, and running toward me when I did. Usually, we’d all just celebrate birthdays at our local Wine and Whine haunt whichever Wednesday was closest—that’s how we celebrated everyone’s birthday—but they knew I’d come to the Met on Wednesday instead, since it was my birthday and I was nothing if not my parent’s child of routine, and they’d accosted me on the steps, completely unexpected. I thought I wouldn’t see Drew and Fiona for another week at least, but they decided to bringPenelope along, and she was napping surprisingly blissfully in a wrap across Drew’s front. My aunt and I used to visit van Gogh before we set off on our trips, but there was no trip this year, though it was still nice to go and sit, like I used to in college, and drink a little wine, and listen to my friends comment on the pieces of art as if any of us knew what we were talking about.

“I like that frame,” Juliette said. “It’s very... stark.”

“I think it’s mahogany,” Fiona pointed out, before Penelope Grayson Torres made a noise that probably signaled to Fiona that something was amiss, because she took the baby from Drew and said, “I need to go find a bathroom. Drew?”

“I think there’s one this way. We’ll be right back,” Drew added, getting up with her wife.

“Take your time,” I replied, and they left down the hallway. Juliette grabbed a map that had been abandoned on one of the benches, and she mentioned that she hadn’t been to this museum in a while.

“You should go explore. I’ve been here so many times, I think I have all the plaques memorized,” I replied matter-of-factly, and that seemed like a great idea to her, because she set off for the Sackler Wing, leaving me to my own devices.

Finally alone, in the quiet surrounded by tourists, I settled down on my bench, and looked up at the van Goghs, sandwiched beside other Postimpressionist painters of that era, Gauguin and Seurat. Even though people tried to be quiet as they moved around Gallery 825, their footsteps were loud and shuffling, echoing across the wooden herringbone floor.

I closed my eyes, and breathed out a breath, and I missed my aunt.

She always said she loved van Gogh’s work, and maybe that was why I loved it as well. And knowing what I knew now, maybe sheliked van Gogh’s work for other reasons, too. Maybe she liked how he created things while never knowing his own value. Maybe she liked the thought of being imperfect, but being loved anyway. Maybe she felt some sort of kinship with a man who, for his entire adult life, warred with his own monsters in his head. Vincent van Gogh’s last words were, after his brother comforted him by telling him he would get better from the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, “La tristesse durera toujours.”

The sadness will last forever.

It wasn’t a lie. There was sadness, and there was despair, and there was pain—but there was also laughter, and joy, and relief. There was never grief without love or love without grief, and I chose to think that my aunt lived because of them. Because of all the light and love and joy that she found in the shadows of everything that plagued her. She lived because she loved, and she lived because shewasloved, and what a lovely lifetime she gave us.

I didn’t realize Drew had returned until she cleared her throat, her hands behind her back suspiciously—as if she was hiding something. Fiona wasn’t with her. “Hi, sorry. I didn’t want to give this to you with everyone else around...”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I really hope you won’t be mad at me, but...” She revealed a package, and handed it to me. “When you threw it away, I... fished it out of the garbage. I was trying to figure out the right time to give it to you and, well... there’s never a right time, I guess.”

It was the same package that I’d thrown away—the one from my aunt that had gotten lost in the mail.

I took it, running my hands over my aunt’s crisp handwriting.

“I’m sorry if you’re mad but—”

“No.” I blinked back tears in my eyes. “Thank you. I regretted throwing it away.”

She smiled. “Good.” Then she stooped down and hugged me. “We love you, Clementine.”

I hugged her back. “I love you all, too.”

She kissed my cheek, and began to leave again, but I stopped her for a moment. “Did you ever hear back? About James Ashton?”

Did I mess it all up?But I was afraid to ask that part, because I hadn’t heard one way or the other what ended up happening to that auction. I think it wrapped up today. He probably went with Faux, or Harper, or—

A sparkle lit Drew’s eyes and she nodded with a smile. She sat down on the edge of the bench and took my hands tightly, and said, “We got it! I heard just before we came here to surprise you.”

My shoulders relaxed with relief. “You got it.”

“We have some things to work out in the contract, but he’s ours.”

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