Page 120 of My Heart Will Find You

“I have to go. Henry’s coming. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t want me to talk to you. Not now, anyway. Do what you want, but naming the main character after Henry’s son is strange.”

“Ben is Henry’s son.”

“Okay, if you want to nitpick. Technically, Max is Martha’s kid but Henry legally adopted him. I have to go.” He clicked off.

Etta put the phone down on top of the big book. It was afternoon, so she knew she’d been asleep for hours. She was hungry, but she didn’t want to eat. More importantly, she didn’t want tothink.

For some unknown reason, Henry had ignored his ill health and was now going to Denver.To see his grandchild, she told herself. That made sense.

What made no sense was what Zack had said about Max being Henry’s son.

But compared to all she’d seen and done in the last weeks, a confusing phone call was nothing. She was at the point where if Zack had said Big Foot was Henry’s cousin, she would have nodded in agreement.

She got up, went to the kitchen, and made herself a sandwich. As she looked around at Henry’s beautiful house, she thought,I should leave. When she was taking care of the owner of the house, she had a reason to be there, but with him gone, she was a stranger in someone else’s house. A trespasser. She’d get on the internet and find a place to stay.

She went back to the library to get her phone. She didn’t look at it, but instead, she sat down on the couch. Yes, she should pack her suitcase and leave. Never again did she want to see Henry or his house. Or risk dreaming of a time when she fell in love then was crushed, destroyed. She just wanted to go home to her father and Lester and the safe world of fast meals and modern plumbing.

She looked at the cover of the big book that contained paintings of a time that no longer existed.

She’d seen Pat’s portrait. Who else was in there? Nellie? Cornelia? Her mother?

Was Max in there? But no. When Henry made those paintings, Max was already “gone.”

Slowly, Etta stood up. Yes, she should leave. But as she got to the door of the library, she looked back. She didn’t know what it was, but something was different.

She scanned the beautiful room. Except for the book on the table, it seemed to be the same. It was on the second sweep that she halted at the desk in the alcove. To the left of it was Henry’s tall, slanted art table, the one she was sure wasn’t there before her second dream.

It took her a moment to see what was different. There was no carving on the front of the desk. The relief of the man on the horse, the one Henry had carved, wasn’t there. There was just a blank piece of wood.

Why would that have disappeared?she wondered. That had been done in this century by modern Henry. It was the desk he and Ben had bought at the auction. Later, Henry had taken it apart and chiseled the beautiful relief into it.

Now it was gone. Why?

Beside the desk was Henry’s toolbox. It hadn’t been put away after they’d looked for the portrait hidden in the back of the drawer.

A quick glance showed her that the portrait in its little frame was on top of the desk. That made no sense as Max still had it when Etta got off the train. But she’d shown Pat where to hide it. By all that was logical, the portrait should still be hidden.

“Logic!” she said. That was something that no longer applied to her life.

Right now all she knew for sure was that shehadto see what was on the back of the front panel of that desk.

She went to Henry’s toolbox and opened it. She wasn’t a carpenter, but she’d had some dealings with old furniture. She got out a flat pry bar, turned on the flashlight of her phone, then crawled under the desk. Right away, she saw that she wasn’t the first person to take out the back panel. Had Henry removed it then tacked the desk back together?

It didn’t take much to loosen it and the thick piece of wood fell out. She picked it up, scooted backward, and put it on the desktop.

This panel had also been carved, but not by twenty-first century Henry. It had been done by Henry the Painter. It was of the buffalo hunt. There was Etta, wearing Max’s mother’s culottes, her knife to a buffalo on the ground. In the background was Max with his rifle and wearing only the tiny breechcloth.

Etta collapsed onto Henry’s chair, staring at the wooden artwork.

It wasn’t difficult to put the story together. The old carving had been hidden so the desk wouldn’t be sold to a museum or a collector or some art dealer. It was saved so Henry would find it many years later.

He’d found the carved panel but he’d put it back in place. Rehidden it. Why? So Etta would find it? That couldn’t be. Henry would have to have known that Etta was coming.

She took a photo of the panel with her phone, then texted it to Zack and asked him to show it to Henry. She didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

I am sorry. Please look under the stairs. The code is Max. Forgive me. Henry.

If there was anything in life that Etta didnotwant to see, it was whatever was under the stairs. She’d had all she could take of Henry and his ancestors and the dreams that tore her apart.

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