Dethyre Vaneau

The ash from the studio doorframe rubbed off onto my sleeves in grey, greasy smears. Five years in a cell hadn't changed the smell of charred oak. Dethyre sat on the wooden stool near the northern window, his wool coat unbuttoned just enough to remind me the moment the silver cufflinks I used to trace with my thumb. He didn't look up when the deadbolt clicked shut. "The state dropped the indictment yesterday morning," I said, setting my satchel onto the stained workbench. "Your lawyer stopped filing motions." "My lawyer did what I paid him to do until the money ran out," Dethyre replied, his voice flat as slate. He turned a piece of charcoal between his fingers, leaving black dust on his knuckles. "Your father's fraternity didn't leave much in the offshore accounts after the trial." I pulled a blank canvas from the wall rack and set it against the easel. The canvas was rough, cheap linen purchased with the small stipend the prison authority handed out upon release. "You knew about the basement before you bought the first landscape." "I knew Nelly was down there." He finally looked at me, his eyes cold & sunken, drained of the false warmth he had used to hollow out my life five years ago. "I thought you were helping him burn her." "I was painting what I saw in my sleep." "It doesn't matter anymore." He stood up, shaking the dust from his trousers with brief, methodical slaps. "She was dead before the fire started. The coroner's report was unsealed last month." I picked up a pallete knife, scraping a dried flake of cadmium red off the steel blade until it hummed. "My mother knew the whole time. She lives with her parents in Lyon now. She sends me letters blaming me for the stain on the family name." Dethyre walked toward the door, stopping just close enough for me to smell the damp wool of his coat. "Are you going to paint again?" "I don't have to," I said, staring at the clean white linen. "The dreams stopped the night he died in his cell."