Chapter 6 - THE ASSIGNMENT
A Hallway of Absences and a Thirty-Year LiesIn January, the summons arrived.
Richard and Eleanor were turning thirty years married in April. To celebrate, they were throwing a massive, black-tie anniversary gala at the grand Pines Country Club in Denver. Over one hundred guests were invited: business partners, local politicians, extended family, and country club elite.
A mandatory family video conference was scheduled for a Sunday evening. Rebecca sat in her Santa Fe studio, looking at her computer screen. The grid showed her parents in their pristine living room, Jason in his corporate office, and Megan in her apartment.
"Alright, team," Richard said, clapping his hands together like a CEO launching a product line. "This party needs to be flawless. We're showing people thirty years of Miller family success."
"I've got the venue budget locked down," Jason announced efficiently. "We're catering filet mignon and lobster tail. I took care of the open bar contracts."
"And I'm handling the event program and guest entertainment," Megan chimed in. "I hired a string quartet for the cocktail hour, and I'm organizing the family toast sequence."
Richard nodded approvingly. "Fantastic. Now, Becca."
Rebecca sat up slightly in her chair. "Yes, Dad?"
"We need you for three things," Richard ordered, pulling out a yellow notepad. "First, design and print the formal invitations—you've got art software, so that shouldn't take you long. Second, assemble a thirty-year photo slideshow for the projector screen during dinner."
He paused, leaning closer to the camera, a rare look of theatrical excitement on his face.
"And third," Richard continued, "the grand finale of the evening. We want an original canvas painting. A high-end, custom family portrait of the five of us to reveal on stage before the toast. Something dramatic we can hang in the house afterward."
Rebecca stared at the monitor.
A tribute painting.
A familiar, treacherous warmth flickered deep inside her chest. They want my art. They want me to paint us. They want my work to be the center of their thirty-year celebration.
"Some part of me," Rebecca would later admit to Ethan, "still thought that if I made this painting perfect enough—if I captured them with enough beauty—they would finally look at me and see a daughter."
"I can do that," Rebecca said on the screen, her voice steady. "I'll do the invitations, the slideshow, and the portrait."
"Great!" Richard snapped his pad shut. "Send the draft invitations to your mother by Friday."
Two weeks later, Rebecca traveled back to Denver alone to collect old photo albums from her parents' house for the slideshow. Eleanor gave her free rein of the home while she ran errands.
Rebecca spent hours in the basement office, scanning vintage photographs: young Richard holding baby Jason on his shoulders; Eleanor hugging Megan at a soccer field; pristine portraits of the family vacationing in Hawaii.
While looking for a box of negatives in the back of Richard's executive desk closet, Rebecca stumbled upon a heavy leather-bound photo album tucked behind tax documents.
She pulled it out and opened it on the desk.
It was a professional family portrait portfolio done by a high-end Denver photography studio eight years ago—when Rebecca was twenty.
She flipped through the silver-gelatin prints. There was a stunning, studio-lit photo of Richard and Eleanor seated on a velvet couch. There was a shot of Jason and Megan standing behind them, smiling radiantly. There was a portrait of the entire family including their golden retriever, Cooper.
Rebecca stared at the photos.
She wasn't in a single one of them.
Not one.
The photoshoot had been conducted eight years ago—during her sophomore year of college—on a weekend when her parents knew she was working two jobs in Santa Fe and couldn't afford a flight home. They hadn't told her about the shoot. They had simply taken the picture without her.
A strange feeling hit Rebecca—not anger, but a sudden, terrifying sense of clarity.
She closed the album, drove to her father's commercial real estate headquarters in downtown Denver, and walked into the corporate lobby.
She had been to his office only a few times as a child. She walked past the glass elevators toward the executive reception area.
And there, hanging prominently on the oak-paneled wall behind the front desk, beneath a polished brass plaque that read "THE MILLER FAMILY - GENERATIONS OF EXCELLENCE," was a massive, four-foot framed canvas of that exact photo.
Richard, Eleanor, Jason, Megan, and the dog. Smiling, polished, complete.
A young receptionist sitting at the front desk looked up from her computer. "Can I help you, ma'am? Do you have an appointment with Mr. Miller?"
Rebecca stood in the middle of the marble lobby, wearing her casual denim jacket and paint-stained boots, staring at the four-foot lie on the wall.
"No," Rebecca said softly, her voice frighteningly calm. "I don't have an appointment."
May you like
She looked at the brass plaque. The Miller Family.
For twenty-eight years, she had believed she was an insider trying desperately to keep her seat at the table. Looking at that lobby wall, she finally understood the truth: she was never at the table to begin with. She was just an auxiliary guest who refused to take the hint.
