The Gargoyle

The translation was not easy for Sayuri, who suggested the closest approximation was either “Everything comes back” or “Life is repeated.” Sayuri added that this was the type of thing old Japanese ladies sometimes say when they think that they’re more Buddhist than they really are. It appeared to me, from the dirty look she shot her daughter, that Ayako understood more English than she let on.

But as they walked away, they hugged each other tightly. Ayako seemed to be quick to forget her daughter’s comment about old Japanese ladies, and Sayuri was just as quick to forgive her mother for laughing at the image of Gregor as a chipmunk.

After Maria

Maria

Jack also spoke on my behalf. Her words carried special weight because she was not only Maria

Jack Meredith can speak words that I ca

The legal proceedings accounted for most of my time during the summer, but in truth I barely paid attention. I didn’t care what the police decided about my responsibility in the disappearance and I didn’t care what the lawyers said about the will. In the end, Jack had to retain an independent lawyer on my behalf, because, without counsel, I would have signed any document put in front of me, just as I had in the hospital when my production company was put into bankruptcy.

Maria

In a collection of shoeboxes at the back of a closet, I found bankbooks from a dozen accounts holding hundreds of thousands of dollars, now mine. Maria

Nothing that I inherited will become mine for a number of years yet, because there was no body. Only after sufficient time has passed will a “presumptive de-th certificate” be issued for Maria

The local newspapers, and even a few international ones, carried short articles about the disappearance of a mentally ill but highly talented sculptress. “Presumed de-d,” they all said. Because nothing improves an artist’s reputation more than a tragic end, Jack was able to sell the gallery’s remaining statues in record time. Although I had to violate the terms of the will to do so, I gave Jack most of those that still remained at the fortress. (I kept only the statue of myself, and a few other favorite grotesques.) My lawyer advised against this, but it wasn’t as if the police were monitoring my actions. It was common for trucks to come and go, so no one in the neighborhood paid any attention when a few more statues were hauled away. When Jack brought over a check for their sale, less her commissions, I pressed the payment back into her hand.

She deserved it more than I did. And even though the bank accounts were frozen, I had ample money on which to live.

Maria

There were two other things in the box, as well.

Ultimately the police determined that I was without culpability in the disappearance of Maria

I killed Maria

As she walked towards the ocean, I knew that she was not going swimming. I knew that she would not return, and I will not pretend otherwise. And yet, I did nothing.

I did nothing, just as she had once requested that I do, as a way of proving my love.

I could have saved her with nothing more than a few words. If I had told her not to enter the water, she wouldn’t have carried out her plan. I know this. She would have returned to me, because her Three Masters had told her that I needed to accept her final heart but then release it, to release her. Any effort that I made to stop her would have constituted a refusal to release her, so all I had to say was “Maria