Found Family

Daedalia: Chapter 28

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Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Marabelle traced Kelly’s New York portrait series to Harry Hasselblad, whose late wife had bought most of the paintings despite their poor critical reception. When Marabelle visited Harry’s penthouse to see the collection, she found not a sterile billionaire’s vault but a private outreach operation built around the people connected to the paintings.

“I didn’t come here today to learn about your secret operation, much less write about it. I didn’t even know it existed. My interest is purely in your art collection.”

We were sitting in Harry Hasselblad’s office and the old man was cradling a cup of black coffee. In the photographs I had seen of him as a young man, he struck me as completely unremarkable. His narrow eyes, thin lips, and the set of his jaw made him look irritatingly sensible. But that was not the man sitting in front of me. There was a softness in his face and a smile in his eyes that defeated the gruff facade he was projecting for me.

“Why are you interested in it? The paintings in this series are considered to be her worst and if you don’t believe me, you can look at the appraisals I had done a few years back.”

“That’s a big reason why I wanted to see them for myself.”

“So you’re writing a book about the artist, I suppose.”

“I haven’t decided yet, but I’m considering it.”

“Can I be frank? Why on earth do you think the world needs another book about her?”

“I don’t write books for the world.”

This wasn’t entirely a true statement, but it was one I wanted to believe about myself, if for no other reason than it would make me feel closer to my mother. Harry nodded and took another sip of coffee. He hadn’t offered me anything to drink and had only agreed to hear me out until the physical therapist showed up for his daily appointment.

“I understand your late wife purchased most of the paintings. How did you feel about her buying them?”

“I was displeased. I thought they were an awful, no, a ridiculous waste of money. I’ve spent my life making useful things.”

“But later you spent a lot of money to acquire the rest of the series. Did you begin to see some value in them?”

“No, not at first. I was grieving the loss of my wife and really trying to understand her, understand what it was she loved about the paintings.”

Because I like to do so much research for my books, I’ve become a skilled interviewer out of necessity. I need people to talk and the best way to do that is to not help them, so I just stared at Harry expectantly. After a few beats, he broke eye contact and set his cup down.

“I suppose you’re looking for the mystical part of all this, something to substantiate all the claims others have made about Daedalia’s paintings.”

I didn’t respond. I leaned back in my chair and smiled patiently. He didn’t look up. In the silence, I could hear the children playing down the hall. Did these people live with him? On the way to his office, we had passed at least three bedrooms that appeared to be lived in. After a moment, he looked up and continued.

“I didn’t spend any time with the paintings until Gina was gone. The ten pieces she’d acquired were in our Aspen house.” He paused and narrowed his eyes, studying me. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but Sadie seems impressed with you, so I’m going to tell you the story against my better judgment. I’m an old man and I guess I’ve done more foolish things. You can do with it what you will.”

“I’d love to hear your story,” I said, and leaned forward.

“I traveled out to Colorado with the intention of selling off the place and everything in it. The night before the estate sale people were supposed to show up, I walked through the empty rooms and felt nothing. I had been avoiding the large, windowless gallery in the basement. You see, the paintings had caused the worst fight Gina and I ever had. They made this rift we never recovered from. I said horrible things to her and she responded by retreating to that place in the mountains. She tore out the movie theater downstairs and made this gallery dedicated to these dumb paintings that were objectively worthless. I felt like she was doubling down, creating a monument to the rift between us.”

“But then she died and everything changed. I was left with the houses, the things, the paintings, and no idea what any of it meant. I’d never gotten a chance to actually see the paintings in person. That night, I looked at them for the first time. It’s hard to accurately describe what I felt at first because things changed so quickly after, but I remember being physically ill. The dark, muddy colors in the paintings of these sad people and the fact that my wife had basically lit tens of millions of dollars on fire to get them was hard to swallow, but mostly I think I felt ashamed of how cruel I had been to her about the whole thing. I forced myself to stand in front of each one of the paintings. Maybe I was trying to get some small return on my investment or maybe I was just trying to make amends with Gina.”

Harry paused. I could see he was trying to hold back a well of emotion. He took another sip of the coffee that looked so black it could be a solid. Sadie came to the door. Our time was up. But seeing her, Harry waved her off and shook his head. She lingered for a moment, looked at me, and then left. When Harry continued, his voice was thick and low.

“Those pieces are more than just paint on canvas. There’s blood and sweat and pain in them. The goddamn critics who wrote what they did, I can assure you, never actually stood in front of one of these paintings for any period of time.”

“What is it you saw in them that night?”

“It’s not so much what I saw, but what I felt. It was the worst kind of feeling. Empty, heartbroken, alone, and beyond redemption. These people survived by their fingernails, just clinging to the edge of society. Looking into their portraits, I felt their insanity and longing and despair. And worst of all, I could see myself as they saw me, a man sleeping alone in a five-million-dollar house, a man who had more wealth than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes.”

He paused there for a long time, lost in thought. I wanted to ask him to continue, but I was afraid nudging him would cause him to shut down and send me away. I didn’t want to believe the story and I was looking for reasons not to. Here was a man who was lonely and grief-stricken without any real purpose. He saw what he wanted to see and it gave him a reason to go on living.

Finally, he cleared his throat and took another sip of coffee before he looked over, his eyes asking for a question that would give him permission to continue.

“So, after that you decided to sell everything and do… what?” I asked.

“I didn’t decide anything right away. I did get physically ill and was in bed for a week. There was a massive snowstorm that shut down all the roads so I was basically isolated for days eating chicken noodle soup out of a can. When I was strong enough to get out of bed, I wandered back downstairs and sat for hours studying those paintings. Every person she painted had their own miserable, heartbreaking story and I knew them all. They lived in me and the only thing that felt right to do was to try to find them and do something, anything. That’s when I really started this last chapter of my life, the best chapter.”

“How many of the people were you able to find?”

“I managed to track down all fourteen of them, but sadly, two of them hadn’t survived the previous winter, Ronald Falstaff and Geraldine Jones.”

“You know their names.”

“Yes.” He said this so matter-of-factly, the expression on his face pained. “I managed to find their families at least, so that was something.”

“But how? These were all homeless people and the names of the pieces didn’t give you anything to go on.”

“It took a while and I hired help, but it wasn’t as hard as you think. You see, you’re like I was, like most people who haven’t fallen through the cracks. You look at them and you don’t see people but they are still people. They have friends. They are known to one another. They can be found and they can be given a chance.”

“It sounds like you were converted or found a calling,” I said.

“It’s nothing so noble. I found a family. They became my family. You’ve met a few of them. Well, their children and grandchildren anyway.”

“You mean, all those people out there stuffing kits, they’re the descendants of the people in those paintings?”

“No, not all of them. Some are nieces or nephews, brothers or sisters. The thing is, once you decide to let people in, to stop hoarding it all, your money, your time, your love, something changes.”

“What’s that?”

“You find you stop thinking about it the same way, stop keeping track, stop keeping score. I didn’t do anything special. I just had something to give and I gave it and it began to give back to me in ways I never imagined possible.”

I was getting visibly uncomfortable and I couldn’t help myself from trying to tear down this beautiful thing he was constructing, find the loose thread and pull it.

“That’s an amazing story, but were you really surprised? I mean, these people were desperate and you gave them money. Surely some of them just took it and ran.”

Harry sighed and looked at me with a weary patience I will never forget.

“Yes, some of them did just take what I offered and ran. A couple overdosed. But most of them? Most of them just wanted to be a part of something, just wanted to be seen, and once they had that, they wanted to give it to others. This whole thing we do now, it was Sadie’s idea. She’s the engine that runs the whole operation.”

The conversation ended shortly after that. I felt ashamed of myself and apologized. Sadie appeared and showed me to the door. On the way out, she said how much she couldn’t wait to read my book. She said Daedalia, whoever she was, saved her life. My face flushed and I felt like a child, a spoiled child with a secret.

I wanted to stay, to tell her everything. I wanted to have what she had, to feel how she felt. I also wanted to tell her that Daedalia wasn’t some saint, that she was just an obsessed, distant, eccentric woman who often forgot to eat or sleep.

Instead, I thanked her and said I’d be sure to send her the first copy of the book if I ever finished it.

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