John Paul Cacioppo

All I Can Offer You Are Complications

7: Art's Sacrifice

1550

To say the boy was abused would be an understatement. The prime piece of evidence would be a simple fact: he’d been dead before his only child’s birth. He’d been only fourteen.

It could be argued that the baby had been what killed him, since his owner – his mentor and boss – would watch the growing womb of a single night’s passion with envy; even though his owner (the artist) had been the one to supply him to the wealthy heiress as reward for her “donation” to the arts. This had been the artist’s first time doing an exchange with a woman, let alone a wealthy heiress, so he’d been quick to cater to her and her money, not realizing the intentions of her will. Had he searched the streets and asked proper questions, he’d have learned of her longstanding marriage and longstanding shame of bearing no child. He would have heard the rumors of other women, attempting to oust her in the place of her husband’s favorite. He would have known to be more careful.

The boy had experience but none with women, so when he entered the heiress’s room, he’d assumed it would be strange to him and that he may fail at his work, but he was wrong. When everything was done, the boy picked at the straw from his pillow and thought of his father picking out crops for harvest. Then the heiress pulled the boy into her arms and muttered something underneath her breath (a prayer, perhaps?), and he thought of his own mother and how she would hold her children close and tell them stories before bed.

He asked the heiress if she needed anything else, and she told him to lie still and to sleep. Despite himself, he did just that, and overstayed the night’s unofficial contract. The heiress’s husband had not returned because of business, but the servants’ shuffling woke him from his sleep. He hopped from the bed, hid before they came to serve their mistress, and he watched the entourage prepare the heiress for her day.

They did everything for her until all that was left to do was for the heiress to stand and twirl in her dress with a smile. It confused him at the time, but he smiled along with her even though he’d still been hidden under the bed. And it was a good thing, he did this because as she spun around, her eyes looked to the floor and saw him there in that bed. He crouched further, so no one else could see, but that moment was done and written in time. And he’d been smiling for it, which was why he was convinced she didn’t yell at him for breaking contract or tell him to scurry away. Instead she asked her staff to leave her for some time without explanation. When they left, the heiress had him again before giving him an extra coin to spend. She put her finger to his lips when he refused and told him to keep quiet because they’d both “broken the contract”, and she asked him if he’d visit again soon. So he said what the artist ordered him to say at this request, “Forever and always. If you’ll have me.”

The artist told him it was romantic and that romance was the most important business the boy brought to clients. It felt silly whenever the boy said this, but this day he meant it because he got an extra coin and a goodnight’s sleep. When he found his way back to the artist’s shop, he cleaned the shop as if he wasn’t late for his daytime work, but the artist noticed and it would be the boy’s response that guaranteed him down the path of death because the artists was a jealous man, and when he saw the smile on the boy’s face and shy manner of response – the artist knew he had to tear down that heiress. And the artist knew, the best way to do this was through her husband.

It would take time to gain trust, but the artist had always been patient. When the heiress bloomed with pregnancy, the artist would do the family portrait, and it’s there that word would spread to her husband about how the baby would look and to which stalk that baby laid.

The boy stood no chance, but somehow the husband entered death with him. The mother of the child would call it a blessing – the artist would call it something else entirely. When the child was born, a small baby girl, the world would be against her mother, and so the artist would take them in. Not because of the heiress, but because of the boy whose loins the young child had sprung. The artist would cherish the young girl and protect her with his whole life, and it’s in this way that the boy would still protect his own.

The heiress, despite herself would accept this, but only for her child and for the boy that had fathered her. Throughout her daughter’s life, she’d take her to the unmarked grave of the boy and speak of the love of her father. The little girl would never grow sad from these stories. In the end, giving her all that she desired would be a simple task for her mother and the artist because what she needed most, more than anything else, were stories of her father – and those stories, they could say all day.

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