“When?”
“Last week? I don’t know. I need to get the step stool out of the garage and change it.”
He looks over his shoulder, his eyes taking in what he can see of the house from his vantage point. With furrowed brows, he asks, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“My guess is you’re going to whether I want you to or not.”
His lips tug up ever so slightly before he catches himself. With impassiveness returned, he asks, “Is Emma’s dad in the picture?”
Oof. That’s not at all what I thought he was going to ask me. I guess he’d have found out eventually since he plans on being friends a year from now. I shake my head. “Not anymore.”
His brows narrow as he pieces together what little information he’s learned from me in those two words, and I save him from the mental gymnastics as well as the discomfort of being expected to guess.
“I was married. When Emma was three, my late husband passed away in a freak accident.” It’s been eight years and I’ve said the line dozens of times but each time I repeat it, the sting lands fresh all over again.
Max sets aside his food and there’s an understood sympathy in his eyes. He knows what it’s like to lose his parents. “I’m so sorry, Nola. My parents were flying from L.A. back to Palm Springs on a chartered plane when I was ten, and it crashed near Banning Pass—a wind gust came from nowhere and the pilot lost control.”
I nod. “I read something about that and I’m so sorry, too.”
His lips quirk up and he sits up straight. “Something? You read something, huh? Somebody do a little google search on good ol’ Maxford Hutchings?”
“Maybe.” I take a bite of a chip smothered in nacho cheese and guac. The earlier tension has broken, and he seems more at ease, like back at the bar before I embarrassed him.
He takes a sip of his soda, like I hadn’t dropped a heavy backstory into his lap a minute ago. This night is getting so weird. “How long were you married?”
“Almost seven years. He—Elliott—went snowboarding two weeks before our anniversary. There was a whiteout and he went over the side of the hill. The next day he passed away at the hospital.”
Max takes that in and scratches the side of his face before hoisting his can into the air. “To unexpected weather that ruined our lives.”
This makes me snort as I clink my can against his. “Cheers?” Is that what you say when the salute is really depressing? “Wouldn’t you think it’s bad juju to toast our misfortune?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs and swipes a chip around his box, scooping on topping. “It’s happened and there’s nothing we can do about it, you know? That really sucks, though happening right before your anniversary.”
I lean my hip into the corner of the counter where it meets the bar, cross my ankles, and take a drink. “He was always off doing something wild. There was a part of me that always figured someday I’d get a phone call I didn’t want to get. Then it actually happened and I was mad for a long time.”
He takes a sip and narrows his eyes in a studying manner. “Don’t take this the wrong way but you’re kind of . . .”
“Dull?” I offer.
“I was going to say low maintenance.”
I can’t help but smile. “I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome. How’d you two end up together if you were low maintenance and he was a risk-taker?”
“You know what they say about opposites attract.” On paper, we had nothing in common, but we’d made it work.
“When he died is when your career imploded?”
I push off the counter and nod toward the living room. “Let me show you something.”
The thing that sold me on this midcentury modern was the architect’s use of brick along the entire long living room wall that houses the fireplace. The owners before me had painted it a fresh white and with its subtle texture, it does a little trick on the eyes when paired with artwork, elevating it to next-level displaying. It’s my favorite feature in the house, from my standpoint as an artist.
We stop between the coffee table and couch to look at the wall. Three large canvases are framed and hang above the fireplace. Each represents a different part of my art life: the abstract era; the dark canvas that changed everything; the twin of the original Sawtooth Mountain painting Stella loves so much at the assisted living center.
“These are yours?” Max lowers himself onto the sofa and leans his elbows on his knees. He squints at the three paintings intently, studying them. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
Sinking into the corduroy reading chair next to the couch, I say, “Well, I started out as a student of Jackson Pollock and studied him extensively in art school.”
