I told your grandmother I had made a lot of money. She said nothing. But I saw a slight softening of her face and a trace of curiosity.

I asked if I could hold you.

Another hesitation then she handed you to me. You nestled your head in the crook of my neck. I had never felt such joy. Tears sprang to my eyes.

Marguerite wilted into a chair beside the kitchen table. She looked old and weary.

I asked her what she had named you. She said Simon and I whispered it again and again as my lips brushed your cheek. Simon. Simon.

I asked Marguerite if she still hated me. She said she was too old for hate. And too tired.

Then we sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee and talked. I told her I had much success in Paris selling paintings. My own paintings. I was not sure Marguerite bought my lie. But she said nothing. I could see she needed my help. That she wanted to believe me.

I helped her straighten up. I added logs to the fire. Marguerite cooked and mashed peas and I fed them to you. When you cried I walked you until you fell asleep. Then I laid you into your crib.

I came back to the table where Marguerite was waiting. She asked how much money I had. I told her a lot. Enough for all of us. All of it made from the sale of my paintings. She said it did not matter how I had gotten the money. She was tired and alone and no longer young. That the baby was difficult. But she did not want to lose him. He was all she had left of her daughter.

I looked into her eyes. I said he was all I had left of Simone too.

She told me about a house for sale down the road. A simple stone house. Sturdy. Twice the size of her house.

I said I would buy it if all three of us could live there together. She said yes. And then she cried.

82

I awoke on the floor, curled in a ball and achy, morning sun streaking through my Bayonne bedroom window. My first thought: I have to call Smith, have to tell him what happened to Peruggia. Then reality set in, but I said it anyway. “We got it, Smith, the end of the story.”

My dad was still sleeping, no doubt nursing a hangover, and I had breakfast with my mom. She asked if I’d slept well, and I told her I had, a lie, but a part of me felt good, satisfied in a way I hadn’t felt since I’d come home, knowing that Vincent had been united with his son. My mom made scrambled eggs and strawberry pancakes and I ate everything, using half the bottle of Log Cabin while she interviewed me about teaching (“It’s great”) and my art career (“It’s great”) and her favorite topic, if I was seeing anyone (“no one special”), another lie, though it wasn’t really, as I was no longer seeing Alex.