“But you’re painting again,” she protested. And I was. I had graduated from blacks and grays to some dark blues and greens, as though my emotions were getting slightly less dark but even more complicated.
“Yes, Mom. But those paintings are just for me. They aren’t for the public.”
She had crossed her arms. “Jack is not the public.”
I smiled when she said it. I thought back to my conversation with my sisters on the boat. Mom definitely had the hots for Jack, no matter what she said. I raised my eyebrows at her, and her face turned beet red. Her blush was one of my favorite things about her. I found it so charming.
“You know what I mean,” she said.
When I said no again, she handed me a check. From Jack. For half the money that I wanted to have saved before Adam got home. There was pride. There were standards. And then there was the practical reality that food and clothes and shoes and rent cost money. I snatched the check and said, “It’s a pleasure doing business with you. Any color scheme I should be working around?”
She shook her head. “I’ll design the room around your painting.”
Well, now. That was flattering.
I had told Caroline only weeks earlier that I wasn’t going to paint with people looking at me. But the view from Mom’s store was so gorgeous that I was at the front, painting my little heart out, while Mom’s manager, Leah, waited on a handful of customers. I felt someone looking at me. See?Thisis why I didn’t paint in public. I looked up and smiled. Not a scary stalker stranger. Just Jack.
“Hi,” he said. “I can’t wait to see it all come together.”
I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I had, for probably a full twenty minutes, forgotten that Adam was gone. In that moment, it all came flooding back to me so harshly it took my breath away.
“Sorry,” Jack said, stepping back as if he had offended me in some way. “I can let you get back to it.”
“No, no!” I said. “That wasn’t about you. It isn’t finished, of course, but I’m kind of liking it.”
It was an abstract piece with shades of green and blue and even a little peach thrown in. There was a section of black and one of white, and I hadn’t consciously created it at all, but when I looked back at my work, I laughed out loud.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just sometimes I get so lost in the work that I don’t realize what it is that I’m doing.”
“Oh.” He looked confused, but he didn’t press. I would explain it to him later.
He crouched down on the floor beside me and picked up a sketch Mom had done in black and white of the living room to give me inspiration. “You’re a pretty talented mother/daughter duo, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “Mom always says I get my artistic ability from my dad.” I paused. “But that’s kind of funny because, I don’t know if you know this, but Caroline and I both came from a sperm donor.”
His expression didn’t change at all, like he was bracing himself and trying to keep a perfectly straight face. “Huh,” he said. “Yeah, I think I might have heard that.” Then he shrugged. “But you never know. The whole nature-versus-nurture thing.”
I shook my head. “I think it’s pretty well established that artistic ability is a genetic trait. So either my biological dad was an artist or I got it from my mom.”
“Definitely your mom,” he said, laughing.
I looked up at him and could feel the confusion written on my face. He held up the sketch. “Judging from this, I mean. I obviously don’t know your sperm donor.”
Then he cleared his throat and said, “That’s a nice-looking light thingy.”
My turn to laugh. “It’s a sconce,” I said. I patted his arm.
He sighed. “Is it that obvious that I’m out of my element?”
I tried to look sympathetic. “ ‘Light thingy’ kind of gave you away.” I paused and added, “But don’t worry. I don’t know a thing about creating a hot-dog empire like you did.”
We both laughed.
Jack stood up, and I thought he would turn to leave, but instead he paused, staring at me for a moment before he said, “Sloane, is there anything I can do for you?” He paused again and stuttered. “I mean, with Adam being in his, um, situation, you know, if you need anything at all, I’m here for you. I know we don’t know each other that well and people say these things, but I’m a man, and I don’t know what to say so I need todosomething. And your mom says I can’t do anything for her. So I’m useless and lost.”
I smiled encouragingly. “You know, Jack, short of bringing my husband home in one piece, I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”
