InSight

you’d marry me.”
    God, she was happy. She gave no thought to stability or the uninhibited lifestyle he practiced and remembered thinking that maybe a hint of Lucy existed in her after all. Stewart’s power-brokering family frowned on their marriage, but she and Stewart didn’t care. They were in love and nothing else mattered. When Macy came along, things settled down. He loved that beautiful child as much as she, enchanted by her every gurgle, captivated by her toothless grin and sapphire eyes. His eyes. Gentry eyes. Life was beautiful.
    Then everything started to slip away. Stewart’s slow downhill slide became a rapid descent into a dark and terrifying abyss that turned a beautiful man into a monster.
    The memories of another life impaired her normally keen senses, so when Stewart placed her hand under his chin and moved it along the left side where his jaw used to be and up to the nub of his ear, goose bumps rose on her arms. She said nothing, hoping her face didn’t show the physical pain that twisted her insides.
    “So many times I wished I had died that day,” he said. “I should have, you know. I look in the mirror and see someone else. Maybe that’s God’s punishment for what I’ve done—a constant reminder.”
    Stewart was right. The man who robbed her of her child and sight wasn’t the loving man she married. Somewhere along the way, that person had become possessed by a genetic malfunction, a glitch in his DNA. She heard her voice shriek inside her head. How could they release him?
    “Why have you been tormenting me the last two months?” she asked. “Emails, phone calls, ransacking my house, and hurting Daisy. Why?”
    “I told you it wasn’t me, but I was there that night, watching. Someone came out the front door. Then the police came and took the dog.”
    She didn’t believe him but played along. “Who was it?”
    “I don’t know. I was too far away.”
    “Did he run to a car?”
    “No, around the side of your house, toward the back. He didn’t run. He walked, like he had all the time in the world.”
    “Why were you watching?”
    “I watched you often, always waiting for a time when I could think straight. When voices didn’t clutter my mind. That night I decided to talk to you, but I lost my nerve. The man came out, then the police came.”
    Oh, yes, he’s well. With voices cluttering his mind.
    “All these years,” he said, “painting saved my life. Do you know how many times I painted you, Abby? Hundreds. You and Macy. You were my catharsis.”
    She wondered how he saw them. How did he paint the daughter he murdered? How did he paint her? When he became sick, the art world ate up his offerings like a gourmet meal. Was that the case now? If so, how did she miss all the sensational aspects? Had her life been so insulated?
    She marveled at Lucy’s ingenuity in protecting her with such a massive cover-up, enlisting everyone to go along. Would she have been better off knowing, or did her ignorance provide mental healing she might not have benefited from otherwise? She’d give the question serious thought. Still, she couldn’t shrug off the knife-in-the-back shiver whenever she thought of her mother.
    Abby rubbed Daisy’s neck. Her dog was an anchor in the unsteady present. “Please take me home, Stewart.”
    “I will. Tomorrow.” He paused. “Do you love him?”
    “What? Who?”
    “The cop.”
    At the mention of Luke, butterflies attacked her insides. “How long have you been watching me?”
    “Do you?”
    She couldn’t, wouldn’t, deny the relationship existed, if it still did. Stewart obviously knew about Luke. But she wouldn’t talk about him. “This is none of your business.” Silence commandeered the room. She had mastered the art of interpreting silence. A paucity of words answered many questions lately.
    His breathing seemed controlled, as if he were purposely calming himself. In. Out. In. Out. He started to say something, then changed his mind. After a few false starts, he spoke. “I still love you, Abby.”
    He brushed the side of her face, his hand cool and quivering. She closed her eyes.
    “The delusions, the suspicions, I couldn’t help it. I loved Macy more than the stars and the moon and the sun. She encompassed all of those, this bright light in the middle of all the darkness, all my confusion. I try not to think about her, because when I do, I want to die. There must be a reason my heart keeps beating. Something I have left to do. I