through our apartment. My fault. Everything. I've made it so much worse.
Mom mumbles too quiet for me to hear. I press my ear against the door.
"The photos. The memories. The money." Her voice rises in pitch. "How could you?"
I lean my head against the door, my eyes closed.
"You promised. You told me everything would be all right." She sneers. "You told me, 'Just a few small jobs to get us through the hard times.'"
I slump to the floor, and cradle my head in my hands, my chest tight. A suffocating weight presses down on me.
"You lied!" Something smashes on the floor. "You lied to me. You lied to yourself. And you lied to your son. You risked everything for the thrill. What were you thinking?"
The same question echoes in my thoughts.
"Well, it's too late now, isn't it, Joseph?"
Sobbing.
And more sobbing.
I push up on shaky legs. I can't listen anymore. But before I walk away, I hear Mom's words.
"But I still loved you."
A lump fills my throat. Love. Did Dad love her back? Did he love me? Love means sacrifice. Love means telling the truth. Love means not going to jail.
I start in the living room and put the furniture back together pillow by pillow. I find places in Mom's desk for the remaining papers and slide the drawers quietly shut. Then I walk into the kitchen. My motions are steady and sure, like a robot, as I sweep up the broken dishes into the trash and put the rest in the cupboards. My heart teeters on the edge, ready to fall with just a puff of the wind.
Cleaning is the least I can do.
After wiping every last trace of the break-in from the apartment, I creep down to the coffee shop. An ache in my lower back spreads to the rest of my body. My head hurts and the cuts on my hand sting from picking up the glass on the floor.
I flip the closed sign on the outside of the door. And then, without a care, I whip open the glass case that shows off Mom's best cookies, muffins, and pastries. I pull out a whole tray and carry it over to a table. At least the coffee shop's still intact. I eat one sweet dessert after another. I can't stop. Chocolate chip muffins, raspberry tarts, jelly-filled croissants, and chocolate donuts.
Halfway through a cinnamon stick, I stare at the wall. And the empty frames. Every yard sale painting had been ripped out and stolen. Flecks of paint lay on the counter and the floor.
6:00 p.m.
Streetlights cast a dim shine throughout the bakery. The tray of sweets sits in front of me, nothing left but crumbs. After sitting for hours, with one swipe, I knock it from the table, a yell erupting from deep inside me. My hands shake.
The door clicks open and the bell jingles. I want to crush the damn bell in my hands and feel the metal bend and twist.
Light steps fall behind me and around me and she picks up the tray, which had skittered across the floor and slammed into the wall. I know it's her by the faint scent of peaches. She sits next to me. I am dumbfounded and can't find the words to breech the gap from our fight earlier. It doesn't matter. Tomorrow, she won't remember anything.
"It was Kronin," I say, my gaze not leaving the wall. I can't bear to look at her and see the hate simmering in the backs of her eyes.
"What do you mean?" Her voice is soft and caring and washes over me. The lump returns to my throat.
"My mom loved those paintings," I croak.
"They were nice paintings. I liked them."
The pulsing hatred behind the words she screamed at me earlier return. She thinks I destroyed her painting. "Why are you here?" The words carry a bitterness I didn't intend.
She sighs and her truth whispers out. "A silver Mercedes followed me home from school today."
"I'm sorry." I dare to look.
The streetlight from behind throws a halo around her face. The soft light caresses her skin and I long to touch her. Her eyes catch mine and there is no hatred. She peers at me from under her long eyelashes. My stomach flip-flops.
She is still here. She hated me all day but in the end it saved her.
"Your hands are bleeding."
She reaches out and lightly runs a finger over the tiny cuts on my skin. Her soft touch sends goosebumps up my arms. She grabs a napkin and disappears into the kitchen. I don't move, soaking in the fact that she's here with me, a gift I never expected. Seconds later, she returns. She dabs my fingertips and hand with a wet napkin then lifts it to my face and wipes the tears filling my eyes and the jelly from the corners of my mouth.
"What happened?" she asks softly.
"Kronin trashed our apartment. He stole all our money." I break and my voice catches. "He stole the paintings."
She runs her fingertips over the little cuts on my hand and then up and down my fingers. Ripples of pain and pleasure spread across my arms and my heart thumps.
"Kronin stole the paintings from the Gardner Museum," Jetta says. "He was arrested years ago."
"That was Ian. His younger brother, Kyle, did this." I look into her eyes, willing to reveal the truth, willing to accept the truth bearing down on me. I'm ready. Finally, after all this time defending him and reasoning away his actions, I can accept his truth, which is now mine. I'm tired of lies. "My dad's the other thief. He was just never caught."
Dad has always been the other thief. I think back to the courtroom during Dad's parole hearing when I struggled to know how to help him. The evidence. The fake security guards. It's too similar to the fake policemen who robbed the Gardner. The whole undercover story was just for me, so I wouldn't think my old man's a crook.
"Kronin wanted revenge?" Jetta asks.
"He wanted the stolen paintings but my dad hid them, so Kronin took these."
"Wait a second." She jumps up from her chair and reaches the wall with the empty frames in two steps. She traces the empty gilded frames with her fingertips. "There are twelve frames here. Some large. Some small."
"So?"
"Don't you get it? The Gardner thieves stole twelve priceless paintings and sketches from the museum, valued at millions of dollars. Three Rembrandts. A Vermeer. A Manet." She shook her head. "I can't remember them all."
"And my dad stole them."
"Where did he get the paintings on these walls?" Jetta asks, her eyes bright with excitement.
"He bought them at a yard sale to help my mom decorate when the coffee shop opened."
This fact I've known for years. Her words resonate with me, and the pieces, the rest of the puzzles pieces appear and they move and form the answer, the part of this I never understood.
She returns to the table and whispers, "Or maybe, he needed a better hiding place for the loot worth 500,000 million dollars."
"Trust me. The pictures on the wall were not Rembrandt and Vermeer."
"The real art could have been underneath."
I stare at the frames, the final pieces fitting together. I should've known. "That's why Kronin's brother killed my dad. He wanted revenge. And he wanted the paintings." The truth strikes hard. When I whispered Kronin's name to Frank, I set the whole thing in motion. Kyle must've thought Dad ratted on his older brother.
Jetta pulls her chair closer, the legs scraping the floor. The fringes of her hair brush my cheek and I breathe in the scent of her, of all things beautiful and sunny. My heart opens and even though a part of me is terrified, I know she's safe.
"I'm sorry about this morning at school," she whispers.
I waver in my seat, dizzy at her closeness. "I'm sorry about your artwork. I would never hurt you." My throat closes up and I barely finish my thought.
"You were serious, weren't you?"
"About what?" I turn my head ever so slightly so we're face to face. Our lips almost brush against each other. So close.
"The art work brings you back in time. To the Gardner."
"Yeah," I whisper back, breathless.
"If people stare at paintings too long, they can get sick. It's a real illness. They can't look at paintings again for a
long time, but I've never heard of actual transportation."
"I don't know how it happens. But each time I return, it's March 17th again." I lift my trembling hand and touch her cheek. "I watched you get kidnapped two times."
"Thanks for saving me. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."
"By staying safe and away from art shows."
"I'll try." She moves ever so slightly forward.
Her breath is on my face. My lips tremble in anticipation.
"Do you have a crush on me, Jack Brodie?"
I can't answer. I've been through too much with her for it to be a crush. But I'm not sure I even know how to love. I thought Dad loved me, but can a man love his family and be a thief at the same time?
I spent the last couple years boarding up my heart, not allowing any feeling in that might cause hurt later. But somehow she's slipped in, her presence brightening my life. I'll do anything to protect her. "I know almost everything about you, even if you barely know me."
"I feel like I know you, though that's impossible," she says. "I want to know you."
I close the gap, our lips meeting ever so softly at first then pulling away. Then we meet again, a bit awkwardly, and then I forget that I haven't kissed a girl in a couple years and think of who she is and what she does to me. Our kiss deepens as I show her what I can't say in words. I reach out and grasp her side, my hand moving to the small of her back. Our breaths catch and the sweet attraction pulses between us. She hesitates and I pull her back, my hand moving up her arms. Her hair is silk under my fingers. The soft part of the palms of her hands touches my cheeks and slide into my hair.
A part of me inside dies knowing that she won't remember