“Youknow that movie?”
“I feel like nobody in this house listens to me. Do you even remember I have two sisters?” His face is very solemn again. “It was a rare occasion when I got to choose what we were watching.”
I would let him choose every show if he promised to stay. Not just at my house but in this marriage, in our family. This has become so much more than the word and the paper that symbolizes the authenticity of it. “How long until midnight?”
He looks at his watch. “One minute.”
“Happy New Year, Maxford.”
“Happy New Year, Nola.” He braves the germs in the name of tradition and puts his lips on mine. With a contented sigh, he lets them linger before pulling away. “This year, we’re both going to get everything we’ve worked for.”
As predicted,Maxford got the flu.
“Ishe still acting like the world’s ending?” Stella lowers herself onto her chair with the dramatic flair of somebody who’s been busy caretaking her grown grandson around-the-clock, not a woman who admittedly slept in and then watchedGolden Girlsup until an hour ago.
We’ve been at this for three weeks and thanks to my shortened sessions due to preferred lighting and Emma’s pickup, it’ll take longer than usual to finish the portrait. The activities director has been so kind to set up the backdrop and pull out the armchair every day, but I get the distinct impression I need to wrap this up today. This room is the resident’s most utilized space and they’re starting to give me dirty looks whenever I show up.
I pick up my palette and brush, glancing at Stella before moving my attention to the canvas. “He’s up and around today.”
She tsks. “He used to do this all the time when he was little. A cold would take him out for days. He’d milk it for all it was worth and the housekeeper would lose her mind having to tend to him.”
“Hold your chin up a second for me, please,” I instruct, rewarding her with a small smile for her memory.
He’d snuck out of my bed New Year’s morning before Emma woke and went to the gym with everybody else resoluteon starting their healthy habits right off the bat. By dinner, he was feeling lousy and headed to bed. I checked in on him and brought him popsicles and ginger ale.
Once Em was asleep, I climbed into his bed, and that’s where I’ve spent the rest of my week. Setting an alarm and going back to my room before getting my daughter up for school. It’s all been middle school innocence—no kissing, thanks to the stomach bug—but merely having him there, next to me, has been what I didn’t know I needed, what I hadn’t realized I was missing out on after almost a decade. Max holds onto me like an anchor in the middle of a storm.
Stella shifts and adjusts and holds herself again. “How much longer before this is over?”
We have great conversations about her parents’ days in movies during the Golden Age of Hollywood, her own stint there, and singing in Palm Springs, almost like she’s taking me in as one of her own, a real Hutchings. Then we have curt questions like that one. I’ve learned not to be rattled. “I’ll finish the main focal points today and then go in and shadow and layer over the next few days. I’m hoping you’ll be able to see the finished painting in a couple weeks.”
“No, dear. How much longer is this thing with my grandson?” Oof. When she says it like this—emotionless and factual—I can’t ever read her. It’s stated very business-like and without emotion. Max reassures me constantly Stella likes me but then she throws these curveballs my way and my confidence is shaken, effectively reminding me I am not her grandchild at all. There is no way I can look unsure or ask clarifying follow-ups.
“You said you thought we’d fall in love,” I remind her.
“And have you?”
“Hold your hands still, please.” I glance at her without acare in the world, dabbing at the black on my palette. “Do you want it to end?”
“Do you?”
“I asked you first.”
She raises a brow and ups the ante. “When he moves to Seattle, will you still visit me from time to time?”
“If that’s what you want, I’d be more than happy to.” I turn back to the canvas and add another outline to her dress. With a sly grin, I say, “I’m never opposed to cleaning house. Bingo day is easy money for me. Plus, ravioli night is killer. I’d be sad to never enjoy that again.”
“Nola, dear, it doesn’t matter what I want.”
Fun. She’s in her martyr mood this afternoon. To save me time as I lose the light, I placate her. “Of course it does, Stella. I’m maybe not the woman you envisioned for Max or the granddaughter-in-law you wanted in your life, but I’m more than just the artist you hired to paint your portrait. You’re my friend and if you want me here, I’ll be here. If you don’t, I’ll respect that.”
Her shoulders straighten like something I said passed her test. “Maxford is a changed man thanks to you.”
“It’s all him. Whatever you’re seeing from him was his choice.” This is the truth. I will never credit myself for changes in another person—change has to come from within.
“I had a very angry grandson for the last year and a half,” she tells me. “Yes, he made choices that reaped enormous consequences. That’s life. I don’t know how many times I’ve told him that there was an opportunity for bigger and better around the corner but he had to stop feeling sorry for himself. When you showed up in our lives, I felt like we were both being given second chances.
“Maxford got a second chance because he found happinessagain, and me, well, I got a second chance because I have worried so much about what my episodes do to him. If he doesn’t have to weather me alone, watch me deteriorate by himself, I’m not afraid for him or me.” She pauses long enough that I stop painting to meet her green eyes, boring into mine. “I need you two to be in love. If you two really go through with your little divorce nonsense, I will probably die.”
