Chapter 361
Olga
I let myself be wheeled to the entrance of the cottage. The nurse helps me stand, and I wave her away. I can walk. I've been walking for seventy-three years. I'm not going to stop now.
The door is unlocked. It's always unlocked. She doesn't care anymore.
I step inside.
The scent hits me immediately—pungent, overwhelming. Alcohol and turpentine and oil paint, thick in the air like fog. Bottles line every surface. Empty. Some knocked over, their contents long since evaporated into the floorboards.
The room is full of finished canvases. Stacked against walls. Leaning on furniture. Hanging from hooks she installed years ago and never used properly.
Vivienne.
Everywhere I look, I see her.Laughing. Glowing. Pregnant with a child who never drew breath.
Thirty years ago, my daughter was never the same again.
Vivienne died, and Daphne died with her. The body kept moving. The heart kept beating. But the soul that soul left with her.
