The Angry Woman Suite by Lee Fullbright Page B

silver-white, sheer, as if she were light-filled, like an angel. In a farther distance was another ghostly figure, this one masculine, but man or boy I couldn’t tell.
    A year passed, then another. By then I’d made a game of the portrait. I’d turn quickly away, pretend I was someone else, anyone else, then turn back to see the portrait with my new eyes. One day it hit me. To render any part of Mother angelic, Matthew Waterston must’ve loved her. And so it followed that my mother must’ve loved Matthew Waterston back.
    Which meant that Lothian must’ve also loved Matthew Waterston.
    Lothian had always coveted everything of my mother’s.
    ***
    Washington’s Headquarters was where I learned more about the Battle of Brandywine than even the most ardent Revolutionary War scholar would’ve cared to know.
    I’d given up on piano, but I lived for weekends, for that near slide down Grayson Hill and straight shot across open field to the tree-shrouded headquarters where Mr. Madsen lived in Chadds Ford. By simple virtue of having made myself an ever-present pain in the ass, I’d procured a job at Mr. Madsen’s museum. I swept floors, rearranged relics and took charge of the guest log.
    A half-dozen chairs were pulled up to an old trestle table that did triple duty as Mr. Madsen’s desk, filing cabinet, and dining table. Two wing chairs were angled in front of a stone fireplace, and under a window was a chest that housed a phonograph, records, and various musical instruments. The rest of the room was outfitted with cupboards and bookcases brimming with relics and bric-a-brac from the Revolutionary War era, positioned so that little paths wended past showcases filled with old coins, maps, letters and edicts, knives and swords. Uniforms, boots, flags and muskets hung on the walls, and in all the room’s corners were stacks of books, more weaponry, and even bugles and drums.
    Washington’s Headquarters was also where I discovered the joy of phonographs, playing non-stop the records Mr. Madsen lent me while I dusted books and showcases: Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman and Fats Waller. I was especially enamored of Goodman’s sound, which I considered the epitome of heathen, though “swing” was whatMr. Madsen called the new musicians’ music. It was the hot thing, the “Big Noise,” but Mr. Madsen wasn’t a die-hard fan.
    “Please, Francis, a little lower,” he begged, looking up from the table where he was writing. “Swing is not for thinking. It’s for jitterbugging. Maybe something else? A pianist would be nice. Might even inspire you to practice. That Duchin fellow is good. Put on‘Moon over Miami.’”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “All right, then. Put on Witherspoon. Put on ‘Dazed.’”
    “Dazed” was no less sweet, but I put it on.
    “I’ve started a journal,” Mr. Madsen suddenly announced. “Everything about your grandfather and me and Matthew Waterston, and how we started Festival, and well … everything. Everything about your history, Francis. Things you’ll need to know someday. Things your children will need to know.”
    “No kidding, Mr. Madsen … isn’t that something? Because just this morning I was looking at my mother’s portrait and trying to figure out why Matthew Waterston painted Mother the way he did, her looking so nice and all. Actually, why he even painted her.”
    Mr. Madsen looked at me as if considering the part in my hair. “Matthew Waterston painted more than one portrait of your mother, Francis. And she became very famous as a result of their collaboration. That’s a big part of your history.”
    I couldn’t have been more shocked had he told me Mother had once done time at Sing-Sing. I told him to repeat the part about Mother being famous. Twice.
    “Yes, she was quite the celebrity. She was the model for ten of Matthew’s most celebrated paintings. All different, but put together those paintings told a story. The group of them is called The Angry Woman