The Marriage Portrait

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“I’ve been looking at these pictures all morning and I still haven’t gotten tired of looking at them,” he told her, his eyes making another survey of the room.

The pictures he referred to were portraits sketched by Cassie. Eighteen pastels of married couples. Two sketches—one as newlyweds, the other as they currently were in the golden years of their marriages. She’d titled the exhibit “Everlasting Love.”

“Thank you. That’s one of the nicest compliments I could receive,” she said sincerely.

“Did you know that when you add up the total number of years all of these people have been married, it comes to exactly one thousand?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but said, “Dorothy figured it out.”

Dorothy was the woman in portrait number four, Emmet’s wife of fifty-one years. At first she had been a bit reticent about posing for Cassie, but after sitting down to coffee and doughnuts and discovering that Cassie’s grandmother had belonged to the same Sons of Norway lodge as Emmet and Dorothy, she’d become one of her staunchest supporters.

“You could have called this ‘A Millennium of Love,’” Emmet continued. “Wouldn’t that have been a great title?”

“It certainly would be accurate, wouldn’t it?” she answered. She didn’t tell him that Dorothy had suggested the very same thing and on more than one occasion. With all the hype that had preceded the turn of the century, Cassie hadn’t wanted to use the word millennium in connection with her work.

“These portraits aren’t just about numbers,” she told Emmet. “They’re about people who have worked hard to keep marriages intact through loss and suffering. The faces in these pictures have had great joy, but they’ve also lived through wars and economic hardship. And despite all the social and political turmoil of the past century, their love has lasted.”

“Ah, that is so true,” he said, a gnarly finger propped against his chin as he studied the portrait of a couple who’d been married seventy-two years. “With those colored chalks of yours, you tell so much. The love, the joy, the wisdom…it’s all there.” He took several steps to his left until he stood in front of his own portrait. “I mean, look at my Dorothy. When I look at the picture it’s almost as if I can hear her saying ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Emmet.’ You have a gift, Cassandra. You show the best of people.”

“I only draw what I see,” Cassie told him. “The emotions expressed here are not mine. I’m just the instrument for showing who these people really are, and each one is someone very special.”

“And I thank you for showing that to the world. Not many people would devote an entire exhibit of art to old people.”

“Well, I did, and I’m very glad that I took the time to get to know these wonderful married couples.” She spread her arms in an encompassing gesture. “They are my tribute to aging and to love that endures the test of time.”

She again surveyed the room, appreciating the lighting and the spacing of her portraits. Even though the center wasn’t an art gallery, the staff had constructed a very elegant and artistic display of her work. It reinforced her decision to have the opening at the center rather than in an art gallery.

“You did a wonderful job arranging the portraits, Emmet,” she complimented the older man.

He smiled. “I had help. My sister used to work at the Walker. Of course, she’s retired now, but she has a good eye, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. I’d like to meet her. Will she be here tonight?”

“As a matter of fact, she will. And so will lots of other people. It’s going to be a wonderful opening.”

“I’m sure it will be.” Cassie had a rush of nervous excitement at the thought of a project so dear to her heart finally being ready for public display. “What time would you like me to be here?”

“Maybe an hour before opening…would that work for you? We’ve invited all of the married couples in the pictures to come early so they can see the exhibit before it’s open to the public.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”

“And they will be delighted to see you. Will you be bringing a guest?”

“Yes, I will. A friend of mine.”

“Might I ask this friend’s name…for a name tag, of course,” he asked with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Her name is Claudia,” Cassie answered, knowing perfectly well that Emmet was curious to know if she had a special man in her life. Every time she had sat down to begin another portrait, it never failed. She was asked the same question, “Are you married?”

And when she’d say that she wasn’t, she’d get a similar response, something like, “I can’t believe a beautiful girl like you is still single.”

Then she’d mention that she was a widow and the bemusement would turn to sympathy, producing comments such as, “Oh, you poor girl…to have loved and to have lost…he wouldn’t want you to be alone the rest of your life.”

Emmet and Dorothy had been no different from the other seniors and she suspected that Emmet’s curiosity about her guest this evening was spurred by his wife’s interest. Something that was confirmed by his next statement.

“You’re bringing a girlfriend.” He sighed. “Dorothy will be disappointed. She’d hoped that by the time all of the portraits were finished you’d have a young man and your next exhibit might be newlywed love.”

“No, I’m afraid I have no such plans,” she said with an apologetic smile.

He reached for her hand. “Not to worry. You’re young. You have plenty of time to make plans,” he said consolingly.

Cassie didn’t need to be consoled. She wasn’t pining after her dead husband, nor was she longing for a second chance at love. She was comfortable with her single status, which was probably why she found the “Everlasting Love” project so fascinating. In an era when so many marriages failed, it was refreshing to work with those that had remained solidly intact for more than fifty years.

“I’d like to say maybe you’ll meet some nice young man here tonight at the opening, but our guests this evening will probably all be senior citizens,” Emmet told her with a look of regret.

“I can’t think of a nicer group of people to share my work with on opening night,” she remarked. She was grateful when he was paged by the office to take a phone call and the subject of her personal life could be set aside. Cassie gave him another smile, assured him she’d be on time this evening and waved goodbye.

While he was gone, she went over to the portrait with the number one beside it. It was of her own grandparents, William and Mary Carrigan. Little had she known at the time she had drawn them that it would be the inspiration for an entire project.

She looked at the happy faces smiling at her and felt all warm inside. They were such dear people and, like the others, happily married for over half a century.

“Sharing. That’s the key to staying married,” her grandfather had told her on more than one occasion. “Never keep anything from each other. You must be best friends and share everything.”

Cassie sighed. She’d followed that advice during her short marriage to Darryl. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. A tiny stinging sensation erupted in her chest and she determinedly pushed such thoughts aside.

No point in thinking about the past. It was gone. So was Darryl. She was happy. She had a life—not the life that these senior citizens in her portraits had, but a good, fulfilling life.

As she gave one last glance to the exhibit, she told herself that everlasting love was wonderful—for some people. But not everyone.

Not her. She sighed, then went home to shower and put on her opening night dress.

“DR. MAC, I HAVE that information you wanted.” Tabitha handed him a small stack of papers. “Here’s a listing of the art galleries in Minneapolis and St. Paul and their current exhibits by local artists.”

“I didn’t realize there’d be so many,” he said, leafing through the stack. “Thank you. I’m sure this will be very helpful. I only hope it didn’t take up too much of your time.”

“Actually, it did, but if you clue me in on why you need this information, I’ll forgive you,” she said with an impish grin.

Michael debated just how much he should tell his assistant. “I’m looking for a particular artist, that’s all.”

“Would this be a female artist by chance?” He grinned. “As a matter of fact, it is. Satisfied?”

“So you want to go see her work, is that it?”

“I am curious to see it, yes,” he admitted. “If you had given me her name, I could have eliminated all the paperwork,” she said, nodding to the stack of computer paper on his desk.

“That’s just it. I don’t know her name.” Tabitha put her hands on her hips. “Then how do you expect to find her?”

“Looking at this list, I’m not sure I will.”

“Well, good luck. And if you need any more help, just let me know,” she said with a cheerful wave before shutting the door on her way out.

Michael was tempted to ask her assistance in his search for Cassie, but he figured the less he said about the artist, the more unlikely it was anyone would discover he’d met her at the dating service dinner. It wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t made such a fuss about being an unwilling participant, telling Tabitha he only attended the dinner because he hadn’t wanted to hurt Tessie.

His assistant had asked him about his evening out the following Monday morning. She’d listened intently as he’d given as brief an explanation as was possible, saying that although it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, it wasn’t the way he wanted to meet women. Then he’d waited a couple of days before asking about the art galleries, not wanting Tabitha to question why he suddenly had an interest in art.

He didn’t. He’d always been a science guy, needing things to be concrete, not abstract. Which was why it was probably foolish of him to be entertaining thoughts that he and this Cassie could enjoy more than a couple of glasses of wine and some titillating conversation.

But he did entertain such thoughts. Ever since the dinner, she’d been on his mind often—which really had him perplexed. He wasn’t one to fall head over heels for a woman at the first meeting—certainly it had never happened to him before. Maybe his fascination with her had to do with the fact that Cassie wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe if she hadn’t told Claudia Dixon to blow him off, he wouldn’t now, six days later, be trying to figure out how to find her.

But he was trying to locate her. That’s why he’d had Tabitha go on the Internet and get a listing of the local art galleries. He hoped to find a Cassie among the names, but when he’d read through all of the pages without any success, he decided it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

For all he knew, she might have been a starving artist—and a not very good one at that. Maybe she’d never shown her work. Or maybe she only talked about being an artist but hadn’t actually created a single work of art. He threw the computer printout into a desk drawer.

He needed to forget about Cassie the artist. Meeting a woman through a dating service was not his idea of romance anyway. And he didn’t want his mother to get any more ideas on the subject, which meant there was something he had to do. He unlocked the center drawer on his desk and pulled it open. The only item inside was a black book.

He picked it up and flipped through the alphabet until he came to the ‘T’ section. When Rebecca Tollefson dated a guy, she made sure everyone around knew he was her possession. The thought made him shiver. Still he picked up the phone and dialed her number.

“Rebecca, Mac.”

After a throaty chuckle of delight, which conjured up all sorts of provocative images in his mind, she said, “I’m so glad you called. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Now how could I do that? You’ve been on my mind a lot lately and I was wondering, are you free on Sunday?”

AFTER A BUSY WEEK at the clinic that had included several emergencies, which had robbed him of sleep on three out of the past six nights, Michael was not in the best of moods on Sunday when he picked up Rebecca. It didn’t help that she wanted to spend the day in the city and would have been perfectly content not to leave his place.

The city was not where he wanted to spend his afternoon. Ever since he’d graduated from college he’d lived alone in a condominium the real estate agent had called the perfect residence for the young professional. It was in a high-rise that gave him a spectacular view of the metropolitan area and easy access to the clinic and its patients. It also had its own health club, tennis courts and swimming pool.

Rebecca saw no reason to leave the complex when they had everything they needed at their fingertips. Not even when Michael told her that he wanted to take her to the lake so that she could meet his mother did she change her mind. It was only after much cajoling and the promise that they would later return to the nightclub just around the corner that she agreed to spend the afternoon at Tessie’s.

As he pulled into the long, winding driveway leading to the house, Rebecca said, “This is quaint, isn’t it?”

Michael didn’t comment, but hoped that when she stepped inside the house she wouldn’t remark on how old the house was. It wasn’t the fanciest of houses, but it was the one he’d called home ever since he could remember. He loved its high ceilings and varnished wood floors. He also knew that no matter what day of the week or what time of day it was, Tessie would welcome him with open arms. Whether she would welcome Rebecca was anyone’s guess.

Although he didn’t like the idea of allowing his mother to believe that Rebecca was anything other than a woman he occasionally dated, he knew that if he was going to get Tessie to stop her matchmaking, he needed to convince her that he was getting serious about Rebecca. Only he soon discovered that Tessie was nowhere in sight.

Rebecca could only pierce him with one of her “I told you I didn’t want to come” stares and said, “Guess you should have called first.”

“She’s always home on Sundays,” he said, walking around to the side of the house, where he peeked into a small window in the garage. “Her car’s here.” He followed the sidewalk to the back of the house. She wasn’t in the garden, nor sitting on the patio, nor rocking in her wicker chair in the gazebo.

“You looking for Tessie?”

Michael glanced across the honeysuckle hedge to see Otto, the next-door neighbor and husband to one of the Mums, sprinkling his garden. “Have you seen her today?” he asked the balding gentleman.

“Sure did. She took off with a couple of the Mums right after church. Nan said they were going to the senior citizen center. Apparently they have some big doings going on over there, but Nan and I couldn’t go. We’re baby-sitting the grandkids.”

“Thanks.” Michael acknowledged the information with a wave of his hand, then turned to Rebecca, who stood tapping her foot near the Explorer. She’d heard every word of his conversation with Otto so he didn’t have to repeat it.

“Does that mean we can leave?” she asked, impatience twisting her lovely features into a scowl.

He hadn’t put up with Rebecca for this long to give up on his plan because of a little detour. “If I know Tessie, she won’t stay away very long on a beautiful day like this.”

“You want to wait for her to come home?”

It was obvious that Rebecca didn’t. “It’s not as if there isn’t anything to do,” he said with as charming a smile as he could muster. He nodded to her small designer cloth bag. “Put your suit on and we’ll go for a swim.”

She wrinkled her nose. “In the lake?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Because it’s dirty, for one thing.”

“It’s perfectly safe for swimming, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“The last time I swam in a lake I cut my foot on a rusty beer can.”

“This is private property and I know for a fact that Tessie doesn’t drink beer.”

“But what about the creepy crawly things…oh, and those slimy black leeches?” She practically shivered at the thought. “And the bottom’s probably full of yuck.”

“There are a few weeds, but all the home owners in this bay have the beach raked for weeds every summer.” She didn’t look convinced so he said, “What about going for a boat ride?”