I Am Rembrandt's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

before too long. “Don’t laugh. Soon Magdalena will insist on having all of her friends over for chocolate and you will be required to stay and entertain them.”
    “I like chocolate.”
    “And then she’s going to spend all your money and make you turn to drink.”
    “Oh, good, then I shall come see you on my way to the tavern.” He lunges forward to pinch me.
    I dodge him handily. “I don’t believe that. It has been ages since you’ve been back.”
    “Bird, it has been three days. I just was wed!”
    “See? She owns you now. Just like the book says.”
    Neel returns to the kitchen. He stops upon seeing Titus.
    “Neel, how are you? Paint anything good lately?” Titus raises a brow and smiles.
    “I am learning,” Neel says.
    Titus lowers my book, smiling, and waits for more.
    A spot of red creeps up each of Neel’s cheeks. “Your vader asks for ale,” he says to me. Neel is just five years younger than Titus, but he acts as if my brother bewilders him.
    I pluck my book from Titus’s hands, shove it under the clothes to be ironed that are piled on the table, then pour ale from the jug. I hold out the pewter mug to Neel.
    “Let me know when you have a painting you would like me to sell,” Titus calls after him as he walks away. “Just as charming as ever,” he says with a grin.
    “We cannot all be as charming as you,” I reply, surprised by a jolt of sympathy for Neel.
    “Oh, hush,” Titus protests, but I see him glance at his own reflection in the window. “Neel’s a good enough fellow. A bit serious, perhaps …”
    I pick up an unironed collar from the table, pretend to fold it, then throw it down. “I cannot stand it around here. Vader is going crazy. He keeps calling for you, when he has to know you are gone.”
    Titus pulls back in surprise. “He does?”
    “All the time.”
    “He never used to be confused,” says Titus. “Tactless and absurd, yes, but not confused. Maybe I should call a physician.”
    “No!” I say. Doctors cost money. “Maybe it’s not that bad.”
    “TITUS!” Vader yells from upstairs.
    Titus looks at me. “Is that what he’s been doing?”
    His worried face alarms me. Maybe Vader is worse than I feared. Maybe the eccentricity that has always shamed us has tipped more deeply into madness than I had thought. “Neel must have told him you were here.”
    “TITUS!”
    Titus races from the kitchen, then leaps up the stairs three at a time, with me trailing after him. He has Vader in a bear hug before I reach the studio.
    “Papa!” Titus looks at Vader tenderly. “Did Neel tell you I was here?”
    Neel, holding Vader’s mug of ale, shakes his head no.
    Vader’s saggy cheeks, shadowed by white stubble from not shaving since Titus’s wedding day, rise in a joyous grin. “A wonderful surprise!” He embraces Titus and thumps him on the back. “How are you, lad?” he cries in his throaty voice.
    Titus pulls back. “Papa, I heard you call me. Do you not know I have left? I am married now.”
    “Of course I know,” says Vader. “To Saskia’s cousin. Lovely girl.”
    “Then why do you do it? Cornelia says you shout after me all day long.”
    Vader shrugs merrily, a paint-splotched St. Nicolaes. All he needs is presents for the little children. “It makes me feel better to pretend you are here.”
    Titus and I exchange a look. Perhaps he is just being a nuisance after all.
    Titus sucks in his breath. “Papa, Cornelia will take care of you now.”
    “Cornelia?” Vader squints at me like a blind man.
    “When you call for me knowing I am gone, it scares her,” Titus says. “It scares me, too.”
    “You children scare too easy. Neel, where is my ale?”
    Neel steps forward with the mug. He glances at me as Vader guzzles. I make my face as blank as possible. Neel need not know how worried I am about Vader.
    “What I am saying, Papa,” says Titus, “is that when you need something, call Cornelia.”
    “I will, I will.” Vader takes another deep