Page 56 of A Happy Catastrophe

Delaney’s personal life has taken a change of course as well. Recently, he and his current girlfriend, the florist Marnie MacGraw, welcomed Delaney’s daughter from a previous brief relationship into their home. Fritzie Delaney, 8, says she is happy to finally meet her father and she loves painting with him in his studio.

“I am a surprise girl,” Fritzie says. “He didn’t know about me until me and my mom looked him up on the internet. And now my mom is in Italy, and so I am living with Patrick and Marnie. And I am trying to cheer him up. I am hoping he will paint about me sometime.”

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

Artist Patrick Delaney, of Brooklyn, in his studio, looks over his work from the previous day. Once a sculptor, he doesn’t want to show his new paintings to anyone until the opening on January 18 at the Pierpont Gallery.

A quick unauthorized peek at one of Delaney’s in-progress pictures, depicting the horror of the fire that killed his girlfriend, the artist Anneliese Cunningham, eight years ago.

Fritzie Delaney, 8, the daughter of Patrick Delaney, says she has only recently come to live with him and his girlfriend. “I didn’t even know him until three months ago,” she says. “Now I know that he’s a hero. He tried to save someone from burning up in a fire.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

MARNIE

My mother moves over to Lola’s apartment the day after Christmas. No more Girlfriend Hour after we get in bed at night, complete with manicures, pedicures, and talk about husbands and flings and purple hair dye. It’s just as well. I’m tired, and I don’t like hearing about Randolph Greenleaf, and I certainly don’t want to see my mother’s tragic look when she thinks about Patrick and me.

I guess she and I both imagined that Patrick would now have the chance to move back in our room, but of course he doesn’t take the opportunity.

Too much work to be done in the studio, he says. He looks haggard and stressed out when I see him in the kitchen, and I can barely reach him, is the truth of it. When I try to kiss him, his return kisses are like little pecks on the cheek, the way you might kiss an old disagreeable auntie. Or an ex who was throwing herself at you.

A woman with any self-respect would probably kick him out. But, you see, there’s this child. I can’t bring myself to lose her. And of course, she would have to go with him. That wouldn’t be good for anybody.

Anyway, so on January 2, with school finally back in session, I come into the kitchen after taking Fritzie to the bus stop, and there’s my mom cutting up vegetables for soup for dinner. At eight o’clock in the morning, but whatever. I’m a little ragged because Fritzie is upset that Patrick wouldn’t walk her to the bus stop this morning, which she says is the only time he talks to her lately. He’s frantic now, trying to finish up.

So she’s acting out. She fussed about the need to wear her warm coat and her boots, and then she said Patrick lets her cross the street by herself, which I know is not true. He is the most danger-aware person in the world.

“You have to stop giving me so much trouble,” I finally said to her, and she sunk down into herself, pouting. So then I hugged her, and I told her I loved her so much. She looked up at me with those huge, opaque eyes and then she leaned up against me, and said, “Are things going to get better again when Patrick has finished working on the paintings for his show?”

“Of course they are,” I said. “Everything is going to go back to normal.” And she skipped the rest of the way to the bus stop.

My mother is cutting carrots and onions with the look on her face that people must get when they are killing Burmese pythons in the Everglades, or so I would imagine. She says that last night Dr. Randolph told her that—call him old-fashioned, if you must, he said—but he doesn’t much like it when women wear makeup. Or pants. His sainted mother never wore any, and she was the best-looking woman he ever knew. And she had a nice, low, calm voice, too. Sometimes, he had to admit, women’s voices get on his nerves. My mother’s voice being one of those, for instance, just sometimes. When she’s excited. Only when she’s excited.

I take Bedford off his leash and look at the table, where Inside Outside magazine is lying.

“Oh my goodness,” I say, and my mother says, “Yes. So I won’t be seeing him anymore,” and I say, “Of course not, but ohhh, look at this—Patrick is on the cover of Inside Outside! And it’s here! The story is out.”

“Yes,” my mother says. She’s stirring a pot of soup on the stove for lunch. “I guess it’s not very good news. At least Patrick didn’t think so.”

“Is he in his studio?”

“Yeah. Kind of mad, I think.”

“Oh, God.” Then, after I’ve read the story, I say it a few more times for good measure. “Of course he hates this. It’s just what he feared.” I start tapping on the table. “All this triumphing over adversity and the Golden Boy of Sculpture, the soul of art.”

“Why is this so bad? This says only nice things about him.”

“He doesn’t want to be a hero, Mom. And this isn’t really about him or his art. It’s all about this reporter and the gallery owner needing him to sound like he’s some long-suffering hero staging a huge comeback. Using the police reports. Ugh. Oh God, and they talked to Fritzie. I didn’t think the reporter had permission to do that.”

“But . . . well, he was a hero, wasn’t he? I mean, he tried to save that woman.”

“Yes, he did,” I say. It’s hard to explain, but I try anyway. “That woman was the woman he loved. And she died right in front of him. And this makes it sound like he’s capitalizing on the tragedy. That he’s benefiting somehow from being the Great Sufferer.”

“Well, I didn’t think it sounded like that at all,” says my mom. “If you asked me, the only negative thing about it in my opinion was that they could have said a little less about how he’s not handsome anymore. That would get to me if I was him.”

From the toaster comes a piece of burnt toast, flying out of the holes in the top and landing on the floor. Bedford listlessly lifts his head and goes over to pick it up.

“Oh!” says my mother. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that temperamental toaster of yours. I’m ordering you a new one right after I finish these dishes. First I’m going to send Randolph a text message saying I won’t be troubling him with my annoying voice anymore because I’m never going to see him again. And then a new toaster.”

“No new toaster,” I say quickly. “We love this one. And by the way, texting is considered a bad way to break up with someone.”

“Tough shit,” she says. “I’d hate to make him listen to my screeching over the phone.”

I kiss her on her magnificent, bold, fierce-woman cheek as I head to the studio.

One time, a long time ago, when I first knew I was falling in love with Patrick and he wasn’t letting me in because he was so resolutely miserable and didn’t think there was any such thing as love out there for a man who had scars on his face, I accused him of living on the planet My Lover Died in the Fire. I actually said that. I was mad when I said it, and I stood there in his kitchen, the basement kitchen downstairs, wanting to make love with him more than anything I’d ever wanted in my whole life, but he wouldn’t do it. I was embarrassed because I loved him so much, so I said that he’d chosen to live in unhappiness and guilt, but that he didn’t have to. I said the fact that he was angry all the time meant that he was healing and that his whole problem was that he hated himself for healing. He wanted to stay stuck in his grief and let life go on without him.

ey’s personal life has taken a change of course as well. Recently, he and his current girlfriend, the florist Marnie MacGraw, welcomed Delaney’s daughter from a previous brief relationship into their home. Fritzie Delaney, 8, says she is happy to finally meet her father and she loves painting with him in his studio.

“I am a surprise girl,” Fritzie says. “He didn’t know about me until me and my mom looked him up on the internet. And now my mom is in Italy, and so I am living with Patrick and Marnie. And I am trying to cheer him up. I am hoping he will paint about me sometime.”

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

Artist Patrick Delaney, of Brooklyn, in his studio, looks over his work from the previous day. Once a sculptor, he doesn’t want to show his new paintings to anyone until the opening on January 18 at the Pierpont Gallery.

A quick unauthorized peek at one of Delaney’s in-progress pictures, depicting the horror of the fire that killed his girlfriend, the artist Anneliese Cunningham, eight years ago.

Fritzie Delaney, 8, the daughter of Patrick Delaney, says she has only recently come to live with him and his girlfriend. “I didn’t even know him until three months ago,” she says. “Now I know that he’s a hero. He tried to save someone from burning up in a fire.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

MARNIE

My mother moves over to Lola’s apartment the day after Christmas. No more Girlfriend Hour after we get in bed at night, complete with manicures, pedicures, and talk about husbands and flings and purple hair dye. It’s just as well. I’m tired, and I don’t like hearing about Randolph Greenleaf, and I certainly don’t want to see my mother’s tragic look when she thinks about Patrick and me.

I guess she and I both imagined that Patrick would now have the chance to move back in our room, but of course he doesn’t take the opportunity.

Too much work to be done in the studio, he says. He looks haggard and stressed out when I see him in the kitchen, and I can barely reach him, is the truth of it. When I try to kiss him, his return kisses are like little pecks on the cheek, the way you might kiss an old disagreeable auntie. Or an ex who was throwing herself at you.

A woman with any self-respect would probably kick him out. But, you see, there’s this child. I can’t bring myself to lose her. And of course, she would have to go with him. That wouldn’t be good for anybody.

Anyway, so on January 2, with school finally back in session, I come into the kitchen after taking Fritzie to the bus stop, and there’s my mom cutting up vegetables for soup for dinner. At eight o’clock in the morning, but whatever. I’m a little ragged because Fritzie is upset that Patrick wouldn’t walk her to the bus stop this morning, which she says is the only time he talks to her lately. He’s frantic now, trying to finish up.

So she’s acting out. She fussed about the need to wear her warm coat and her boots, and then she said Patrick lets her cross the street by herself, which I know is not true. He is the most danger-aware person in the world.

“You have to stop giving me so much trouble,” I finally said to her, and she sunk down into herself, pouting. So then I hugged her, and I told her I loved her so much. She looked up at me with those huge, opaque eyes and then she leaned up against me, and said, “Are things going to get better again when Patrick has finished working on the paintings for his show?”

“Of course they are,” I said. “Everything is going to go back to normal.” And she skipped the rest of the way to the bus stop.

My mother is cutting carrots and onions with the look on her face that people must get when they are killing Burmese pythons in the Everglades, or so I would imagine. She says that last night Dr. Randolph told her that—call him old-fashioned, if you must, he said—but he doesn’t much like it when women wear makeup. Or pants. His sainted mother never wore any, and she was the best-looking woman he ever knew. And she had a nice, low, calm voice, too. Sometimes, he had to admit, women’s voices get on his nerves. My mother’s voice being one of those, for instance, just sometimes. When she’s excited. Only when she’s excited.

I take Bedford off his leash and look at the table, where Inside Outside magazine is lying.

“Oh my goodness,” I say, and my mother says, “Yes. So I won’t be seeing him anymore,” and I say, “Of course not, but ohhh, look at this—Patrick is on the cover of Inside Outside! And it’s here! The story is out.”

“Yes,” my mother says. She’s stirring a pot of soup on the stove for lunch. “I guess it’s not very good news. At least Patrick didn’t think so.”

“Is he in his studio?”

“Yeah. Kind of mad, I think.”

“Oh, God.” Then, after I’ve read the story, I say it a few more times for good measure. “Of course he hates this. It’s just what he feared.” I start tapping on the table. “All this triumphing over adversity and the Golden Boy of Sculpture, the soul of art.”

“Why is this so bad? This says only nice things about him.”

“He doesn’t want to be a hero, Mom. And this isn’t really about him or his art. It’s all about this reporter and the gallery owner needing him to sound like he’s some long-suffering hero staging a huge comeback. Using the police reports. Ugh. Oh God, and they talked to Fritzie. I didn’t think the reporter had permission to do that.”

“But . . . well, he was a hero, wasn’t he? I mean, he tried to save that woman.”

“Yes, he did,” I say. It’s hard to explain, but I try anyway. “That woman was the woman he loved. And she died right in front of him. And this makes it sound like he’s capitalizing on the tragedy. That he’s benefiting somehow from being the Great Sufferer.”

“Well, I didn’t think it sounded like that at all,” says my mom. “If you asked me, the only negative thing about it in my opinion was that they could have said a little less about how he’s not handsome anymore. That would get to me if I was him.”

From the toaster comes a piece of burnt toast, flying out of the holes in the top and landing on the floor. Bedford listlessly lifts his head and goes over to pick it up.

“Oh!” says my mother. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that temperamental toaster of yours. I’m ordering you a new one right after I finish these dishes. First I’m going to send Randolph a text message saying I won’t be troubling him with my annoying voice anymore because I’m never going to see him again. And then a new toaster.”

“No new toaster,” I say quickly. “We love this one. And by the way, texting is considered a bad way to break up with someone.”

“Tough shit,” she says. “I’d hate to make him listen to my screeching over the phone.”

I kiss her on her magnificent, bold, fierce-woman cheek as I head to the studio.

One time, a long time ago, when I first knew I was falling in love with Patrick and he wasn’t letting me in because he was so resolutely miserable and didn’t think there was any such thing as love out there for a man who had scars on his face, I accused him of living on the planet My Lover Died in the Fire. I actually said that. I was mad when I said it, and I stood there in his kitchen, the basement kitchen downstairs, wanting to make love with him more than anything I’d ever wanted in my whole life, but he wouldn’t do it. I was embarrassed because I loved him so much, so I said that he’d chosen to live in unhappiness and guilt, but that he didn’t have to. I said the fact that he was angry all the time meant that he was healing and that his whole problem was that he hated himself for healing. He wanted to stay stuck in his grief and let life go on without him.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com