To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter Fifty-Two: Indigo Heart, Do You Still Love Me?

"De Aardappeleters" (The Potato Eaters) by Vincent van Gogh (1885), the early version was stolen in 1988 and recovered in 1989, the final version was stolen in 1991 along with 19 other major paintings from the Vincent van Gogh National Museum, but the getaway car suffered a blown tire and the thieves were forced to leave the painting behind, leading to a recovery time of thirty-five minutes - value $91 million

Chapter Fifty-Two

"I think she stole it because of me," I mumbled, sniffling. "I was on a warpath of exposing replicas. I was out for blood; I didn't care whose it was. I'd started ripping apart anyone and anything that wasn't participating in the repatriation of wrongly lost paintings, too. But I had no idea Geraldine fit both of those descriptions. Maybe she knew she was running out of time, and didn't think she could covertly take the Widow down without raising questions. Or... or maybe she knew."

"Knew what?" he asked quietly. He already knew. I heard it, saw it, felt it. But I owed him honesty, as clear and as true as I could give him.

"Why I was there that night."

"Eleanor," he warned.

"Simon, last year, before everything happened, I was looking into the Widow," I desperately explained. "The story of the artist was so unknown. It was this gorgeous mystery so many had tried and failed to discover. The world knew the name, but hardly anything of the story."

I paused, hopeful, but he was blank, and my chest caved in a little deeper.

"I-I did some digging," I wobbled. "It was exciting, and fun, a-and mine. It was just fun, Simon, until I found what I was looking for."

"How did you find it if no one else could?" he demanded.

"At the time, I thought it was because I was special, or others just didn't look hard enough. That I could do what others couldn't." I could slice my self-importance off my body and not lose an ounce with how big it'd grown; a phantom limb I still felt but hadn't lost yet. "But I don't think that was the reason. It wasn't because no one else could, it was because I was lucky. I didn't realize until later I'd been given puzzle pieces no one else had; they were practically put together right in front of me. I found out Wille Le'Garrigue was really Clara Vouten, Marigold's grandmother—and the painter of both the poppies and the Widow."

"Really? You're claiming you didn't know?"

God, how his anger trembled in his scoffs and coiled under his tense limbs.

"Simon, please, I didn't know until last spring," I pleaded. "When I first received the poppies all those years ago, I knew the artist was Clara Vouten. Her story wasn't supposed to have any mystery left, she was a minor artist with a small Wikipedia page compared to him; nobody questioned her history or looked deeper into her. Not like they did for Le'Garrigue. Every museum in the world knows his name! He's attached to the Widow, but like I said, there's barely a crumb of a story."

I paused, remembering that spring, the season I'd undergone a wretched metamorphosis. "Sure, I saw the similarities in the styles, but I had no idea Clara was Le'Garrigue. I thought maybe Clara had studied under him, or was paying homage. In my wildest dreams, there was a possibility of connection, but even then it was a reach! I never would've thought what was actually the truth. All I wondered was if she was his student, or a fan. I thought maybe that was my in to find out more about Le'Garrigue."

His face was frozen waters. I had to keep going, pulling this chain until I could show him the anchor I'd tied myself to.

"So I dug. I did the type of digging that requires golden shovels, black credit cards, and dropping names," I scoffed, scornful as if it wasn't my own actions. "And when I found out the truth about Clara last spring, god, I was so excited. Can you imagine? I was practically leaping from the roof. I solved a mystery that'd been haunting the art world for a century!"