What other choice do I have?” I growl, anger flaring.
Mags puts a soft hand on my forearm, breathing through her nose slowly. Then, out through her mouth.
I follow instinctively. Not questioning.
“This doesn’t have to be an end,” she says.
And God, I wish I could believe her.
Chapter
Nine
JOSEPHINE
Idon’t mean to look. Or to lie.
The storm has already moved east by the time I leave the Grange lot, wind snapping at my jacket as if trying to turn me back. I tell myself I’m thinking about cloud structure.
Not Ash. Not the red-headed woman with the braid and perfect posture.
Not the way they stood too close without introducing each other. I stop at the Silver Bell Café , claim a booth in the corner, far away from the dwindling post-lunch crowd. Because I can’t do the museum anymore. I can’t do any of this.
And yet, curiosity drives sharp as a knife through butter.
I scrawl in my notebook, gathering myself. Trying to make my thoughts make sense.
How?
M. Redfern, 1910
I open the phone, selecting the museum photo again. Then, I open my field notebook to a blank page and start sketching.
My eyes graze over the booted woman, straight-backed, defiant, anchoring the frame. Holding it like the Queen of the range. Like the woman I saw earlier with Ash.
I shake my head. There has to be an explanation for this.
“Coffee?” the waitress asks.
I startle at the question. I have to take a moment before I answer with a nod.
She laughs, filling my mug.
After she leaves, I do the only thing I know how to. I lay out my pencils, feeling the welcome roughness of the 100-pound cotton paper brushing against the heel of my hand.
Drawing does something to me. Puts me in a state beyond words and thoughts. Where I can perceive without judgment. Gain clarity without strain.
Instead of the question roaring through my mind—how?—I think in values of shade.
Black beneath the hooves of the horse. Dark gray beneath her unmistakable jawline. Lighter gray along the bunches of her fringed leather jacket and in the shadows of her hair. White highlights that I enhance with chalk atop her cheekbones and where her bottom lip curves.
The drawing should confirm difference. Instead, my stomach drops.
I can’t eat, pushing at the scrambled eggs and sausage on my plate with the fork.
The waitress returns, a loose braid slipping over her shoulder as she leans across the table.
“Warm up?”
