And that’s done nothing all day, especially right now, to ease my worry. He does tend to go silent when things are stressful or when he gets anxious, but I hope if things got too bad, he would have let me know.
I stuff my phone back in my pocket, trying to ignore the knot in the pit of my stomach, and I push the door open to the garage.
My mom’s sitting on her stool in front of the huge canvas she’s been working on for weeks now, just staring at it. She’s got a paintbrush in her hand, and there’s a small splotch of white paint on her cheek. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t noticed me yet, and with a quiet laugh, I wonder how long I can stand here before she will.
I’m feeling too antsy to test that out, though, and so I shuffle my feet and knock lightly on the doorframe. “Hey, Mom, I’m heading out to grab dinner. Did you need anything else while I’m out?”
For a second, I think maybe she’s not going to respond—that she’s so focused she didn’t even hear me. But then she turns her head with a quiet “hmm?”
I laugh out loud this time as I see her realize I’m standing there. She’s got paint on her forehead, too, and three used paintbrushes tucked into her shirt pocket. I guess she’s been in here painting as long as I was working around the house. That’s my mom. I love her.
“I’m heading out to grab dinner,” I repeat. “Do you need me to pick up anything else?”
“Oh, right, hmm...” She turns back to look at her painting again, her eyes scanning the massive four-foot-by-five-foot canvas. “Um, no, I don’t think so. It’s already dinnertime?”
“Almost.”
“’Kay.”
I shake my head and step all the way into the garage, holding the door handle to make sure it closes quietly behind me. “It’s after four. Did you eat lunch?”
“Of course. Or...” She twists around toward me, her eyes narrowed like she’s trying to remember. “Maybe?”
I give her a crooked smile. “You didn’t, did you?”
“Yeah, maybe not,” she admits, and she glances at her painting one last time as she stands up and stretches. “I’m actually... done, I think. It’s done.”
“Whoa, what? Really?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
She smiles, and I can see the exhaustion in her eyes slowly replaced with the familiar glow of pride and joy she always has when she finishes a piece.
Her eyes wander across the painting, but she doesn’t seem to be scrutinizing it. She seems to be taking it in—the whole of the canvas and her hours and hours of work. I follow her gaze, letting my eyes linger on all the details she’s added since the last time I studied the painting—the soft dewdrop sitting just on the edge of the huge leaf, the little bits of sunshine glinting off the leaf’s stem,the darker shades of green along the hint of the leaf’s underside peeking out after the leaf curves. How she creates such realism, I’m not sure, but the whole painting has a sort of texture to it, a volume, like it’s not just painted on a flat, two-dimensional canvas.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “It’s really, really beautiful, Mom.”
She leans her head against me with a long sigh, and we don’t move for a minute or two. Finally, she straightens up and then turns to me, her nose wrinkled.
“You should shower before you go get dinner. You stink.”
Laughing, I roll my eyes. “You smell like paint.”
“Well, you smell like sweat and dirt. Did you mow the lawns?” She turns away from me and starts gathering up her paintbrushes and supplies.
“Yeah, I finished the downstairs bedroom and then did the mowing—”
“Nico’s staying longer?” she asks, turning toward me abruptly. There’s a question in her eyes, and I almost hear it before she says it. “Did you talk to him about... you know... things?”
My chest tightens as I stare at her.Things.Did I talk to him aboutthings? No, Mom, because I was busy trying to keep him from panicking too much about—
“What happened? What is it?” She steps closer, her whole expression changing to concern. How the hell can she read me so well?
I shake my head and drop my eyes, not really wanting to get into everything. This morning, all I told her was that we went to get his clothes for work. I didn’t mention Patrick or the sort of falling out with his mom or the fact that I basically offered for him to stay here indefinitely.
Guess I should have talked to her earlier.
“We didn’t talk about California yet, if that’s what youmean,” I start. I know that’s not all she means, but I keep going so she doesn’t jump into a long speech about how it’s better to be honest about things right away and talk about things sooner rather than later—a speech I’ve heard lots and lots of times. “There’s stuff going on. At his house, I mean. And he needs to stay here for a while longer. I told him that was cool.”
