Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan Read Free Book Online Page B

two women in silence, mouths not exactly hanging open, but close enough, amazed, not only at the fact that Ada dared to contradict his mother on an art point, but also that his mother couldn’t seem to come up with an answer.
    â€œRebay!” Ada cried. “Hilla Rebay. Anyway, because they’d both been employed by her and had the same name, a lot of the American critics thought Smith was saying he was influenced by Graham, but really, he meant Xceron.”
    â€œWow. That’s quite a conclusion,” his mother said, obviously unconvinced. Marshall felt his anger getting the best of him again. She always acted like she was so open to everything, but she was never open to the fact that perhaps she might be wrong about something.
    â€œLet’s look,” he said, rising from his seat. Four pairs of startled eyes turned toward him. “Should be easy enough to find. I need to check my e-mail anyway. Come on, Ada.”
    Ada looked uncertainly at his parents, but then she rose, with Meghan leaping to follow, and they tramped upstairs to the computer in the attic office. It was an old, crappy desktop and they were still on dial-up at the house, but he hadn’t bothered taking his laptop out of the trunk yet.
    But he found what they were looking for in less than ten minutes, printed off the pertinent information, and the three of them entered the kitchen, triumphant.
    His mother wasn’t always right, and they had the evidence in hand.

Four
    I COULD have been angry when they showed up in the kitchen with their dossier detailing the intricacies of David Smith’s Surrealist influences. And, indeed, from the evidence they presented it appeared that he meant John Xceron rather than John Graham. I’m sure I hid my irritation well.
    And it wasn’t the fact that I was proven wrong. It was the fact that not only did Marshall obviously feel such a compelling need to prove me wrong, but that the three of them, even Meghan, seemed to take such glee in it. I tried to recall my earlier expansive feelings, my willing embrace of new .
    Ada smiled at me tentatively as Marshall and Meghan jostled each other around the kitchen. “Can I help you clean up?” she asked softly.
    â€œNo, of course not,” I said. “You’re our guest.”
    But she pushed through the swinging door and came back in with the empty hummus plate and the still half-full bowl of edamame in her hands, giving Marshall a pointed glance.
    â€œCome on,” he said to Meghan, and they returned to the dining room to help clear the table. I gave Ada a little thank-you wink as she placed the dishes on the counter.
    â€œThat’s a beautiful bowl,” she said, running her fingers around the pierced edge of the blue ceramic bowl my mother had given me when Cal and I married.
    â€œThank you,” I said. “It was my mother’s. She always had it on her kitchen table, and now I always have it on mine.” I shook the edamame out of the bowl and into a plastic bag as she watched.
    â€œI thought it was probably a family thing,” she said. “We had one exactly like it, my mom had it, I mean. She said it was her mother’s.”
    â€œReally? How funny,” I said, appraising the bowl, wondering how many women my mother’s age had the bowl, if it had been one of those giveaways they used to do at grocery stores. I had never asked where my mother had gotten it, and I now envisioned thousands of them tucked away in a second and third generation’s kitchen cupboards around the country.
    â€œDoes she keep it on her kitchen table?” I asked, making light conversation as Meghan and Marshall filed in with plates and silverware.
    â€œOh,” she said, flushing. “No, it disappeared a long time ago. We sort of moved around a lot, so I guess it got lost. She did, though, when we had it. I really liked it.”
    She sounded so bereft for a moment that I actually considered