The hidden painting chapter 16

At their daily meeting regarding all things Arthur, Cindy asks Jasper up straight whether he thinks the deadline will be met. Jasper, who seems like distraction is overtaking his ability to comprehend her question, blurts out that he had a major argument with Melina the night before. He knows Cindy is well aware but informs her anyway.

‘I sometimes wonder what we have actually have in common!’ he blurts out.

‘You must love her!’ Cindy swallows hard. She has thought Melina to only have interest in his money for weeks now, but reminds herself that this man sitting in front of her is harbouring a ring which he is intending to propose with on her birthday next week!

‘I do!’ Jasper answers a little too quickly, rendering Cindy speechless. ‘At least I think I do!’ he adds.

‘You have a ring!’ she reminds him. ‘Do you think it a bad idea to propose?’ she probes praying he is going to admit it to be madness for him to go through with it.

Cindy thinks that, regardless of her opinion of Melina, which she feels very strongly about, a man doesn’t buy a ring unless he is certain she’s the one!

‘Well,’ he admits aloud, ‘the thing about Melina, is that she doesn’t comprehend the value of a dollar!’

Cindy just nods, wanting to be the friend Jasper sees her to be.

He inhales deeply, ‘do you remember when I told you she wanted a Bentley for her birthday?’ he asks, to which Cindy nods. ‘She got in contact with the car company to make sure I had ordered the exact one she wants. When they told her they didn’t know what she was talking about, she ordered it anyway, the bill was handed to me, by courier, when you were out yesterday!’

Cindy’s jaw drops at the Gaul of the woman! ‘Who in their right mind…’ she starts saying to herself, stopping herself from completing the thought! She quickly tries to compose herself and asks, ‘are you going to go through with the payment?’

‘Its too late!’ Jasper hangs his head, ‘the transaction has already gone through! I checked with the bank and the money has already left the account. The only way of getting it back is through the courts, which wouldn’t bode well in my favour with either Melina or the bank! It’s a loss every which way you look at it!’

Cindy bites her tongue and manages to keep her opinion of Melina to herself, knowing Jasper is beginning to agree with her, whether he knows it or not!

There is silence between the dead air that separates them, each wanting to say more, each trying their darndest not to!

 

After a few minutes of silent understanding, Jasper announces, ‘I found a lead on the whereabouts of your painting!’

Cindy is full of delight to hear he is calling it ‘her’ painting and not paying any heed to Melina’s comment from lunch the previous day, and then again later, before she stormed out to, where Cindy presumes to be, Franco’s place!

Cindy simply raises an eyebrow, wondering in her head, ‘how?’

Jasper answers her question by announcing ‘I spent hours in that attic last night, searching each and every box that isn’t mine!’

Cindy moves to the edge of her seat, wanting to listen intently on what Jasper found and understand whether it pertinent to her predicament or not!

‘I found a stack of letters!’ Jasper starts, Cindy almost on the floor as she edges closer and closer off the chair listening carefully.

‘Yes!’ she says in the calmest tone of voice possible, her insides churning at the thought of finding the illusive painting!

‘These are all from this woman whose name is Tonia!’ he says holding two large stacks of letters, held together with elastic. ‘Have you ever heard that name before?’ he asks as Cindy violently shakes her head.

‘I read each and every one, and, apparently, she was his girlfriend before he died! They are all love letters!’

Cindy, who uses the desk to steady herself on the chair that almost topples over, simply says, ‘girlfriend!’

Jasper nods slowly, as he gets up to hand them to Cindy, he says, ‘I thought you might like to read them!’

She gazes at the two bundles being offered to her, desperate to take them, but if she lets go of the desk, she knows the chair will give way, gravity being the culprit, as she barely has any part of her body resting on it! Somehow, she manages to lift herself up and plant more of her ass on the chair to accept the letters, looking at them as if they are two sticks of dynamite!

‘These are all from my father’s girlfriend!’ she states, not expecting an answer, she just wants to be sure it is a good idea for her to read them.

‘Yup!’ Jasper answers, looking from the letters to Cindy and back again.

‘Are there…you know…’ Cindy asks, Jasper answering, ‘I took those ones out!’ somehow knowing that she is asking if they are ‘intimate’ or not!

‘Thank you!’ Cindy looks into Jaspers eyes with gratitude.

‘You’re welcome!’ he answers, not breaking eye contact making Cindy feel the all too familiar lightning bolt jolt down her spine.

She takes the letters and stands up to retreat to her office, her being the first to look away. There is undoubtably chemistry between herself and, who she perceives to be, the greatest man alive, making her feel guilty because of the ‘Melina’ situation!

 

As she lets herself into her office, the two bundles of letters stacked high in the crook of her arm, she plops down onto the sofa and begins reading.

Cindy finds from the pieces of mail ‘Tonia’ wrote to her father, that he seems to be the opposite of what her mother ever told her about him. To this ‘Tonia’ person, the man walked on water, making her think that he and her late mother were simply a bad fit! She writes about the man she grew up constantly hearing was a monster, with love and adoration! She finds herself thinking whether their relationship, not unlike Jasper and Melina’s, to be purely money related. In many of the letters ‘Tonia’ is thanking her father for the ‘lovely gift’ he sent her. Cindy reminds herself that, when she visited Lois the day before, she had been informed her father had her mother on a tight budget, which she presumes didn’t involve gifts.

‘If her mother had a Tiffany, diamond encrusted bracelet, she would have sold it to pay the mounting bills she faced after she left him!’ Cindy assumes. ‘Hell, all these ‘thank you’s’ mounted up would have rendered a second job pointless!’

With all the letters read, Cindy continues to lay on the sofa and gets lost in thought. She hears a gentle knock on the door. Its Jasper, holding up a plate of his ‘signature sandwiches.’

‘I figured you’d be nearly finished reading them and would need a friend!’ he announces.

Cindy smiles at him, ‘these are exactly what I need!’ and opens the door wide enough to let him in!

As he makes himself comfortable on the sofa, Cindy joining him, she notices that he hasn’t only made two sandwiches, one for each of them, but three. Jasper notices her confusion. ‘I figured you might need an extra one after…well…you know!’ his eyes dart in the direction of the two neatly stacked pile of read, and in some cases, reread letters!

She smiles at him, a smile that he reciprocates, his signature dimple showing, and asks herself, ‘does Melina know what she actually has?’ as she ponders declaring her love for him.

They eat the sandwiches, one and a half each, in silence, the crunching of the toasted bread the only thing she can hear! Grateful that Jasper has already read, and censored, the letters, knowing that, when she’s ready, he is the perfect person to talk to about them!

 

Jasper, surprisingly, is the one to break the silence they have been sitting side by side in for over an hour!

‘I don’t want you to get mad,’ he begins, Cindy’s stomach beginning to churn at the loaded statement, ‘but I looked ‘Tonia’ up!’

Cindy’s heart begins to beat at an alarming rate. She is partly glad Jasper did the digging, something she was planning on doing later that day, but a part of her doesn’t want anything to do with the woman her ‘father’ treated like a queen. After all, he apparently treated her mother like dirt!

‘I don’t think we should tell her about the painting!’ Cindy announces, her face mirroring that of a deer in headlights.

‘Absolutely!’ Jasper agrees. ‘We, well…you, shouldn’t harbour doubt that she could claim it as her own…if she has it that is!’

Cindy nods, his understanding of her predicament astonishing her.

‘We can probe into their life together though!’ Cindy states, desperately wanting Jasper to be on the same page she is.

Jasper nods his head and smiles a smile she hasn’t yet been privy to, it’s a smile of pity. ‘I can’t understand what you’re thinking right now. Having read the letters, he sounds as though he treated this ‘Tonia’ person with more consideration than he ever portrayed towards your mother!’

Cindy fills Jasper in on her excursion to Lois’s house the previous day, and that her words conveyed such anger that she just drove for hours trying to clear her head!

‘That’s the reason for the chicken nuggets then!’ Jasper smiles.

‘Yup!’ Cindy answers. ‘I got three burgers, two fries, a wrap and forty chicken nuggets. I understood the calories that I would be consuming but felt the need for some comfort food and just ordered everything I suddenly craved!’

Jasper holds up his hands, ‘there’s no judgement here!’

Cindy can hear the cogs of his mind turn! ‘Go on!’ she dares him.

‘I ate four sandwiches when you went to bed…after Melina informed me, she was staying at Franco’s.’

She holds her hands up and simply says, ‘there’s no judgement here!’ making them both laugh.

 

Later that day, both Cindy and Jasper make their way to ‘talk’ to the infamous ‘Tonia’, agreeing again that bringing up the painting to be a bad idea.

Tonia welcomes them into her home with open arms, saying, ‘you look just like your father!’ to Cindy as she looks her up and down. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’ she adds, confusion hitting Cindy as she can’t understand why!

Cindy, who feels uncomfortable in the presence of her father’s girlfriend, looks towards Jasper with puppy dog eyes.

Jasper, who gets the message loud and clear, takes the lead, Tonia only showing interest in Cindy. She offers them both some homemade lemonade and, as Cindy continues to be unable to form words, Jasper says, ‘that would be lovely!’ answering for both of them.

Tonia, who talks ever so fondly about Cindy’s father, is describing a man who is the polar opposite to who her mother described. She, eventually, takes her eyes off the woman who is sitting opposite her at the dining table and see’s that her father obviously funded the grand building, one which is decorated beautifully and has trinkets on every surface.

Cindy’s eyes returning towards the woman, who looks younger than her mother…much, much, younger, wonders aloud, ‘did he ever show any violence towards you!’ Her question causing confusing and understandably goes down like a ton of bricks! Tonia takes offence at the audacity of Cindy to ask such a question. Cindy sees the expression on her face and quickly says, ‘you do know that’s why my mother fled…right?’

Tonia takes a long sup of what Cindy would admit to being a very nice beverage, her face contorted.

Jasper tries to save his ‘friends’ integrity by adding, ‘she only found out about you this morning and is in shock after reading your letters!’

‘I thought that to be the case!’ Tonia says, her eyes closed, and after taking a deep, soothing breath, admits, ‘your father was nothing but loving towards me! He explained that when he was with your mother, they had their fair share of arguments, and admitted to me that he struck her a couple of times, but he always told me that they were just the wrong fit and only got married when your mother informed him, she was pregnant!’

This, being new news to Cindy, renders her speechless.

‘He told me that, although he wanted to do the right thing, he felt pushed into the marriage by his mother, and was deeply unhappy!’ Tonia explains. ‘We met long after you left his life and he always said he regretted marrying your mother, but that he loved you more than the sun, moon and stars combined. He tried looking for you for years, presuming your mother had changed your last name, and as he was on his deathbed, asked me to promise never to stop looking for you, that not being able to watch you grow up into this beautiful woman in front of me was always his penance for treating your mother so badly!’

Cindy inhales deeply. Had she known this, it might have changed everything, but she was under the impression that he was a man her mother detested and hadn’t been looking for her!

‘He actually had a private investigator?’ Cindy asks with surprise.

‘Right up until the day he died!’ Tonia informs her.

‘Wow!’ Cindy exhales. ‘I never knew that!’

‘Your mothers maiden name, Price, was who he was looking for! Had he known that she had picked Spencer, your grandmothers maiden name, he might have found you!’

‘I always presumed his name was Spencer!’ Cindy admits, her gaze fixed on a figurine standing on the shelf over Tonia’s right shoulder. ‘I was a bit shocked to know it was Devereux, being honest! When Lois, my mother’s friend, informed me that he was dead, it was only a couple of days after my mother passed! Technically, I lost both parents in the same week!’

‘You missed out greatly by not knowing him!’ Tonia smiles. ‘He would have showered you with all the love in the world!’

Cindy, overwhelmed by what she is hearing, begins to cry! She is unsure of what is real and whether what her mother told her, to be true at all!

Jasper places a supporting hand on Cindy’s back and asks Tonia, ‘how long were ye together?’

‘A short eleven years!’ she answers, closing her eyes, ‘I wish it had been longer!’ and wipes a tear from her cheek.

‘How did he die?’ Jasper asks, knowing that to be one of the most important questions Cindy wants the answer to.

‘Cancer got him in the end!’ Tonia reaches for a napkin and dabs her eyes. ‘He was never one to complain was Frank! So, the cancer had spread like unkept grass by the time he found out he had it. Treatment seemed far too intrusive at that stage, and he died three months later, me by his side!’

Cindy nods her understanding. She always, in the back of her mind, wondered if he was a good father to her in those three short years she knew him for, unable to remember!

‘What about my fathers will?’ Cindy asks, finding her voice and looks around at how comfortable Tonia’s life is!

Tonia becomes very defensive. ‘You probably know about the gambling!’

‘And the winning!’ Cindy nods.

‘He lost it all!’ Tonia answers a bit too quickly, something which Cindy doesn’t believe, because according to Lois, he died loaded!

‘Once he was told he was had end stage cancer, he knew his wealth wouldn’t follow him to the grave and fled to Vegas for a weekend. He left a millionaire and came back a pauper!’

Cindy’s eyes open as wide as saucers, thinking to herself that Tonia inherited it all but is unwilling to say.

‘And the money from the sale of the house?’ Cindy asks presuming Tonia would deny her of that as well.

‘Its in an account with your name on it!’ Cindy looks up from the table, shock covering her face. Tonia sees this and nods. ‘All you have to do is present yourself at his solicitor’s office!’

Cindy thinks Tonia to be rightfully forthcoming. She couldn’t have said he gambled away a house after the man had died. ‘I was the one who made that happen, as it is in his will!’ Tonia explains. ‘The house was on the market for months until Mr Ramirez bought it, so I’m afraid I didn’t get the full value of it from the sale. But I did what your father wished, and it’s been in the bank waiting for you, gathering interest. I have been paying a private investigator, out of my own pocket, to try to inform you of both his death and your inheritance! The investigator is still out there, looking very hard for you. Your mother making it almost impossible to find you!’

Cindy looks at Jasper, which informs him that its time to make their excuses and leave, Tonia obviously not saying anything about the painting.

 

As they drive back to the big house, Cindy cries, wanting to believe everything her mother, the woman she knew and loved, told her about the man, who left her with a substantial sum of money, and was forever looking for her. She couldn’t believe her name to be her grandmothers maiden name, a woman who had passed long before she was born, and that her paternal grandmother was the reason her parents got married in the first place! She was under the impression they had married for love, when really it was because of her.

Wrapped with guilt, she flees to her room the second Jasper pulls into the driveway, leaving the passenger door swinging open.

He knocks on her door after letting her stew for hours, informing her that he is leaving to meet Melina. Her heart breaks for the second time that day and she just lays there, thinking about all the what if’s!