We got out of the car and I went to the rock and took the key and led Amy to the front door. She glanced about with apprehension.

“It’s all right,” I promised.

I opened the door and we entered the house. She stood, hesitantly. Her eyes scanned the great room, pausing on the paintings. An uneasy expression was on her face. I took her by the arm and led her to the stairs.

“I think we should leave, Bobo,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” I said. “It’s upstairs.”

I held to her arm as we went up the stairway to Jean Archer’s bedroom. When I opened the door, I stepped back. She saw the painting instantly, and the force of seeing it made her tremble. She paused, then moved toward it. She stood at the side of Jean Archer’s bed for a long time, staring at the painting, and when she turned, her face was damp with tears.

I moved to her and held her. She tucked her head into my shoulder. After a moment she whispered, “It isn’t me, Bobo.”

“It has to be,” I said.

“No. It’s my mother.”

CHAPTER

23
 

AMY DID NOT SPEAK AGAIN UNTIL WE WERE IN THE CAR, DRIVing back toward Woodstock. She sat, tucked into the seat, leaning against the door, gazing vacantly at the landscape. Finally she said, “I wonder when it was painted.”

“A number of years ago, I’d judge,” I told her.

“It’s so strange,” she said. “Seeing it. I can understand why you and Carter and the woman in the restaurant thought it was me. At first, I thought so, too. I thought she had taken a photograph of me and painted the face from it, but it’s not me. It’s my mother.”

“Did your mother know her?” I asked.

She muttered something I did not understand.

“She did?” I said.

Amy turned to face me. “She may have. She told me once about a fund-raiser she helped to organize, something for displaced Jews. It was an art auction and one of the contributors was Jean Archer. I remember it because my mother told me about the painting Jean Archer had offered. It was of children in one of the death camps. My mother said people wept when they saw it, that it was so real it frightened them, and no one bought it. It was finally sold to a museum in Pittsburgh.”

“That was the only time your mother ever mentioned her?”

“Yes—no. One other time. We were in a gallery in New York and there were two or three of her paintings on display. My mother stood for a long time and looked at them, then she said something like, ‘She’s remarkable.’ I remember her voice. It was a whisper, like—like worship. She was in awe.”

“She had a right to be,” I said. “She was looking at talent. When was that?”