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“Yes, sir.” The line disconnected, and I ran down to the car.
If she left, really left, I would leave her alone, but she didn’t. No one ran away from home to go to Jersey.
They said if you loved something, let it go. It would always come back. That was for people who believed in destiny.
Fuck that. I was going to find her now. She was mine, and she was coming home.
I made my own destiny.
CHAPTER 32
AMELIA
Ithought I’d make it at least to Chicago before I got off the train, but I only stayed on it for about an hour when I saw an ad for the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey.
My father had taken me there a few times as a child, and I wasn’t sure if I could say that was the place where I fell in love with art, but it was definitely one of them.
The ad flicked through a few pictures of their exhibits. When I saw the sculpture of Manet’s Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe, the luncheon in the park, I knew it was a sign. I didn’t know if it was from the universe or from God, and I didn’t care. I needed to see that painting rendered life-sized, in person.
It felt a little dumb to get on a west-bound train to run away from home as an adult and still only make it as far as New Jersey, but I’d walk around for a bit, gather my thoughts, and make a plan.
The rain that was pelting New York when I left hadn’t touched the park. It was midafternoon, the sun was out, and the grass a brilliant green. The air was sweetly perfumed by the wisteria tunnel, and its thick bunches of purple flowers hanging down attracted honeybees, as well as butterflies with their gem-toned wings.
This place truly was paradise, and it was exactly the distraction I needed.
With the paper map clenched in my hand, I followed the paths, looking at the art, trying to find the one sculpture I needed to see. Everything was so beautiful, and under any other circumstances, I would’ve taken the time these sculptures deserved to appreciate each one. Not now.
Now I needed to see that woman, freed from the confines of society and expectations up close. Something told me that if I could find her, see a version of that woman nude in the grass, freed from all expectations of decency, it would help me figure out what I needed to do next. She would somehow have the answers I was looking for.
It was silly, really.
When I found the sculpture, I kicked off my shoes and sat in the grass and just thought through what I wanted. The sun felt warm on my skin. The grass was cool under me, a little damp even, but it didn’t matter.
I just sat with the sculpture, first studying her, wondering what her life was, what it could have been. Was she just a prostitute, like many art historians theorized, or was she more? Did she represent more?
That was the beautiful thing about art, and many people disagreed with me, but I always felt that the meaning of a piece could differ. Each person interpreted the piece in their own way, shedding the artist’s intentions and deciding what it said. Of course, artists had different techniques to bring out specific qualities, but ultimately it was up to the viewer to see what they wanted and feel what they felt. Each person could have a different interpretation. Or maybe it was the same interpretation but through a different lens.
Each time I did something for me, something that I wanted, my mother insinuated I was a willful girl and a whore.
Was a woman who lived on her own terms, selling her body? Was saying it was so, a way to keep those women down and discredit them? Was I willing to let that happen to me? Did I care what society said?
No, I didn’t. The only way I would be in good standing in society was if I married Luc, chained myself to a man who used me for a business deal, and just accepted that was all my life was ever going to be.
The more I thought about it, the less I found that acceptable. It was time for me to take control of my own life and live for me, not for society.
I thought it was the first time I considered wanting something that did not exist within the confines of my mother’s expectations. The opportunities were limitless for a young woman of means. I just had to decide what I wanted to do with my life.
Sitting there for an hour, staring at the woman who might have been a prostitute, I could only come up with a single answer. I had no idea what it would look like, but I wanted to live my life.
Live, not exist to serve the needs of others. Not to be solely a wife or a mother, but to experience everything life had to offer: challenges, struggles, victories, and defeat. I didn’t want to live in some bubble anymore, surrounded, both figuratively and literally, with endless shades of beige. My life needed color, and I intended to give it just that.
First thing I had to do was return.
Nowhere else in the world compared to New York, and I didn’t want to give up the Met, and the smaller galleries in Soho and Brooklyn.
Why should I have to? New York was massive. And how hard would it be to hide from Luc and my mother? The sad fact was that I didn’t want to leave New York. I would always be a true New Yorker. It was in my blood. All I wanted was out from under my mother’s thumb, and I didn’t want to replace her control with Luc’s.
New York was the most populated city in the country, and my mother stayed in a tiny block of the Upper East Side. Luc probably never left the Financial District. That gave me everywhere else.
