Chapter 4: Part 2

Turning to face her, Dalmaticus Edwin lowered his eyes to the earth for a breath, a sign of deference, or was he noting the stains on her dress?

"To be graced with the mysterious Ms. Monet after this time." Dalmaticus said. He kept his clipped tone at a covert level, "You have my heartfelt condolences."

"Thank you." Theoline found her hand being picked up gingerly in his, just as she began her designs on a diplomatic retreat. Ryhlen didn't need to say much about her brother but there are somethings that don't need words to achieve the subtle notes of distaste that were suggested to reside deep within this particular brew of a man.

"I am the one indebted to you - for my sister- you understand."

"Ryhlen is a treasure," Theoline flashed a purposeful look at her hand prompting the stoic, eagle-faced man to twitch his grip loose from around it, "Beyond that, she is capable and driven. This is a woman we both care about, not a child." Theoline heard the irritability bleed into her voice, but the directness felt intoxicating and, damn it, she needed to feel like something more than a child with dirt on her dress.

"That may be the case," Dalmaticus looked about as convinced as a rock being coerced to perform an Irish Riverdance, "However, we may be forgetting a keystone in the bridge between us. This, of course, in reference to Marco Rehalan. Oh? You look a touch off balance, Ms. Monet. Please, don't think it has escaped my notice that bringing my sister along as your plus-one had inconveniently placed her in the home of a rabid animal."

Theoline blinked, "That animal has been caged and Ryhlen is fine."

"Semantics." Dalmaticus waved a hand, "I had meant to keep this short. You have been a wonderful friend to Ryhlen these last few years. For now, however, the Edwins will be returning to more domestic values. Of course, you are welcome to visit our estate whenever you'd like to see Ryhlen from now on."

Theoline shook her head and gestured to her father who had appeared before everyone, beside the base of the willow tree, "It looks like I am needed elsewhere at the moment. Thank you for coming."

Dalmaticus nodded, "Indeed, but pardon my lack of grace. I originally had meant to extend an invitation to some entertainment my people have arranged over in the city."

"I cannot."

He continued, unperturbed, "It begins just before sunset at the rooftop garden of Edwins Peak. You should know, I already informed my attendants to have you on the guest list in case you find the need to... run away again."

His final words left nothing to the imagination. Theoline felt the already cracking dam that served as her patience splinter completely down the middle and a tidal flood of pure malice swept better judgment to sea.

"I am afraid it is now I who owe you an apology." She motioned at the parking lot, "I am sorry, Mr. Edwin. It is a tragedy that you have come by to be dismissed so unexpectedly."

Theoline donned a mockingly empathetic expression made sure to run him through with an icy sneer. Much like hurling a pebble into the Mississippi river, the man seemed not to care for the malicious jab. He nodded once then flowed away on his own current down the cobblestone path to the parking lot.

Theoline wheezed out a sigh and began her trek through the crowd to her father. Where she went, a cascading domino effect of silent awareness had reshaped the procession of mourners into an aisle. Her father came into view at the base of the tree. He seemed to have composed himself since she had seen him last, attention intermittently juggling between her and what she guessed was Dalmaticus in the far distance behind her.

Joining her father's side, Theoline fought back a sudden bout of feverish nostalgia for the comforting aroma of spiced peppermint aftershave that had begun to tickle her nose. She scanned the faces arrayed before them, cataloguing a disquieting amalgam of the either half-familiar or completely unknown. Where Theoline caught ogling looks, those people would find sudden interest in her father or the spaces just off center from her head. She swung her heavy gaze until a singular exception brought the world around her to sudden muteness.

A woman stood statue still, peeking out between the minute shuffling in the crowd buffering between them. She offered back a steady dose of her own determined attentiveness. If the words I am here for YOU had stretched up in a wreath of vines above the enchantingly smoke-skinned woman, the effect would have been negligible compared to the intensity of her focus alone. Theoline felt the first breath of crisp, true air enter her lungs, like a life ring buoy had been thrown over her and she could finally stop kicking at the water that had threatened to entomb her.

She finally shared a brief exchange with her father and nodded. The man wore his age with pride, stamped happily with the thickest wrinkles that could only be worked out of once youthful bearing by a perpetually ready smile. It was a face not meant for today's labor.

He cleared his voice and spoke in a velvety tenor, the kind of voice that you would want to hear weave a story while swaddled in thick blankets with your feet up by a fire, safe from a blizzard raging just out.

"Holly told me, the day of the diagnosis, that she wouldn't want me to speak the final words, so I promised I'd only speak the first." Theoline's father said. "Her wisdom saw me getting lost in finding the right things to say, so I will keep it short. Holly wanted just one favor if she was to indeed exit the stage before myself."

His natural boom fell into something more fragile, an uncharacteristically reedy lilt that set the hairs on the back of Theoline's neck to stand on end. "She asked me to put something to canvas, to give her a painting the world would never get to see, something just for her."

He stared down at the rosy orange-twilight urn, looking especially inconsequential in his thick, calloused hands. Sebastian Monet remained silent for a small piece of eternity before raising his voice again, "I don't know if she understood the error of her request, I certainly didn't until she passed. In the end, especially this end, that silly little painting was always meant for the world."

Theoline could practically see the man forge his remaining raw intent into the rough iron of coherent speech.

"Because she was, and forever will remain, the world within my heart."

***