“I wrote him about you. Dropped the letter off in his mailbox. I was too scared to tell him in person.” She shrugs. “We weren’t together anymore when I found out I was pregnant. I felt all alone. He called me. Offered to be a part of it. But I knew his offer was half-hearted at best. He’s a good man, but a very nervous person.” She hands me the piece of paper. “I just looked him up recently myself. You know I was curious. I didn’t contact him, but I know this is him.”
I look down at her loopy script in black ink.
Cort Tinley
Waters Rowe Insurance
1400 Salteenoa Street, Los Angeles
* * *
Driving home through the desert is an empty feeling. Dale stays behind me the whole way, but other than him, parts of the trip are devoid of cars, and I can actually hear myself breathe.
I love being by myself, but it can be awfully lonely. And I’m tired of being lonely. I nearly reach for my cell to call Dylan, and then I remember exactly how he broke things off.
So I curse him out in my mind instead.
When I finally get home long after midnight, I crawl into bed but lie awake for a long time. My body’s exhausted, but my brain won’t turn off.
I get out of bed and go to the kitchen where all my sculptures are sitting in their boxes.
And then I sit down on the carpet and sculpt one more. Sculpting is the one true way I can trust my heart, and I need to figure out what to make of her.
* * *
When I wake up in the morning, at first I don’t remember. It’s not until I get up to pee and see the sculpture staring up at me from the floor that I flash back to yesterday. Yesterday in Tucson, when I was face-to-face with my mother for the first time since I was four.
I sink down to my knees and touch her. She’s pregnant, this figure I sculpted. Pregnant and about to burst. And she’s happy. She’s full of hope for the future and for her child. She doesn’t know about the pain that’s to come. She doesn’t know how ill-prepared and young she is. All she knows is she’s happy in this moment.
I stroke her hair as I realize I have an advantage over this woman. Because I know the effect it had on my own life. And I made a promise to myself years ago that I wouldn’t do it the same way.
But until yesterday, I didn’t believe my promise. I didn’t believe I really could do things differently. Because sometimes, what you fight you become. I had to see my mother as an adult and forgive her as much as I’m able in order to trust that I can be different.
* * *
Late that night, I walk out of the community college art room with the last box in my hand and get into my car.
When I get home, I take the boxes into my apartment and carefully set out on the floor all my pieces from the time I spent in Arizona. They’re all fired and permanent. With the way things ended between Dylan and me, the word permanent has a difficult ring to it. It feels like a warning label to “watch your back” and “don’t believe it will last.”
But as I touch one of the pieces, it’s solid as can be.
Tucson may become a distant memory, and it may be painful as hell, but it’s a permanent one, an experience I can’t take back and pretend never happened. And as much as it hurt when it ended, I wouldn’t take it back. Dylan Wild changed me, and I’m forever grateful to him for that.
I always promised myself I’d never give up. Not like she did. And I don’t want to have lied to myself all these years.
Chapter Thirty-Three
By the beginning of the next week, I have an official website with photos of my sculpture and a gallery owner who needs someone to manage her Malibu gallery for her during the week. Plus, she’s offered me her tiny guesthouse to live in for less money than I’m paying now at my crappy apartment. I go take a look at the guesthouse. It’s super cute and surrounded by nature.
“This is perfect,” I say to her. “I’d love to live here.”
“And I’d like to commission you to do a couple one-of-a-kind sculptures for my outdoor garden,” Theresa says to me as we exit her guesthouse.
I hold back a scream of enthusiasm. “That would be amazing.”
“If that goes well, I’ve got a lot of wealthy friends who’d love the same. In fact, why don’t we hold a show for your sculptures this week?”
I stare at her. “Are you serious?”
