“Tempera paint. Primary colors should be good enough.”
“You out already? The art department only collected the supplies for the play last week.” Despite the confusion wrapped around her face, she wanders to the aisle where the paints sit and hands me large bottles of red, yellow, and blue.
“There was an incident, and we now have one large supply of brown.”
She giggles, but it fades when my face hasn’t lit with amusement.
“Oh, sorry. Hank okay?”
“Yeah, the same can’t be said for the paints. I’ll pay for this lot.”
“No, you won’t. Consider this our contribution to the Christmas play.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, taking in her expression. There’s empathy, but not sympathy. Maybe this small-town thing isn’t so bad, after all...
I’m back at the school gymnasium before long and I haul the paint bottles in the crate that Mrs. Nolan lent me. When my father sees me carrying the heavy load, he skips out on the measuring he’s doing, taking one end of the crate. We set it down on the floor by the rolled-up canvas backdrop material.
“You good here, miss?” he says.
Letting the smile that I ensure is plastered over my face stretch my features, I nod. “Yes, thank you, Hank.”
A sheepish smile grows on his own face.
And I can just tell, all he is seeing at this moment is my mother. Who could blame him? She was an incredible human being.
A small hand slips into mine and I startle, turning to find Maisey. She looks up at me. Her face is wrapped in sympathy when she whispers, “I promise I won’t forget you, CC.”
Just like that, emotion fills my throat like frostbit maple syrup. Slow and unrelenting in its onslaught.
She called me CC . . .
Wonder which one of the people I grew up among told her about that nickname. Probably Marie.
“Thanks, lovely.” I scrunch my face, fighting back the burn behind my eyes and offer her a sad smile.
She takes off toward her dad, skipping as she waves her hands around. “CC thinks I’m lovely!”
Quinton spins back, a brow arched. “That so, kiddo?”
But his gaze isn’t on his daughter now, it’s planted on me as I stand and dwell in two very different warring feelings. Happiness and sadness. Although those words are too basic to describe what I feel right now.
“Give us a hand to set this frame out, hey?” he says, and she settles instantly, all business like her dad. She picks up a triangle-shaped tool and walks to the opposite end of the timber laying at Quinton’s feet. Next to my father, she starts chatting away, bending down to adjust the wood. The triangle tool clatters to the floor, and she pushes it into the right angle she’s made with the two lengths.
“Square!” she calls.
My father bends down after receiving the nod from Quinton, nailing the timber together with a thwack from the power tool in his hand. Is that a nail gun?
Oh my god . . .
A little anxious, I decide to trust Quinton’s call and go about my large mural scene on this first canvas. I outline the image with a carpenter’s pencil I manage to steal from the team on the other side of the gymnasium and slide it behind my ear when I’m done.
I hash out the background colors before starting the next canvas. Deciding to attack this large project in layers. Adding the finer details that make it at the very end.
Hours pass before I surface for a breather.
I find my father happy and sitting with Quinton and Maisey, eating... is that a sandwich?
Would you look at that.
