Without thinking, I turn to look at Adam, and he turns to look at me. Our little team from today, shell collecting. Sharing a secret, private glance about what we found.
Tegan clears her throat, and Adam and I both snap our eyes away from each other.
Like we’ve been caught passing notes in class, or whispering during a church service.
Holding hands beneath a table.
I slowly—so no one can tell, I hope—slide my hand from beneath his. I don’t know what I was doing, letting that go on as long as it did.
Nothing is private in here.
“Fifty thousand,” Luís rushes out, as if he’s embarrassed by the number. I look over at Salem: No doubt she sees the same shell I see, no doubt she’s thinking that fifty thousand must be at least some of what Lynton Baltimore picked up from Curtis MacSherry before coming to Pensacola.
“Keep in mind, at that time, I’m twenty-five years old. I’m doing art on nights and weekends and working part-time at my mom’s shop—that was the Sea Spot—and part-time at a deli. I’d never done a commission in my life. I thought he must be joking.”
“That’s a life-changing amount of money,” Salem says, encouraging.
“Yeah, and my mother, she knew it.” He gestures at his green T-shirt, smiling in good-natured self-mockery. “I know I look like a responsible business owner now, but I wasn’t too bright back then. I think she was pretty concerned I’d blow it all on a fast car or a sport bike.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice has a new tone of fondness. “She was real overprotective.”
“Tell me about it,” mutters Tegan.
A victory: I don’t react. But my hand twitches, cool and lonely, in my lap.
Adam shifts slightly in his chair.
“So what happened?” Salem says. “She didn’t let him pay that much?”
“Oh, she did. She was no dummy!” He laughs. “We had some . . . let’s call them back-and-forths about the money. All week, while I was having Libby sit for me and doing preliminary sketches, my mom was saying we were putting that money straight in the bank. I’m not saying I was arguing for a sport bike, but I’m not saying I was arguing for anything a whole lot better.
“So anyway, end of the week comes, and I’ve got everything I need to work on the portrait. I figured it’d take me at least a couple months to do the painting, and John Harold and Libby say that’s fine; they’ll come back for it. Turns out, that gave my mom a pretty good upper hand with the money issue.”
I’m pretty sure all of us make some expression of confusion. Since you can’t hear those on a tape, obviously, Salem prompts him again. “What do you mean?”
“Well, John Harold insisted on paying up front. All fifty grand, at the end of the week. When he left, my mother said, ‘We’re not touching that money until he picks up the painting.’ I don’t think she trusted him.”
He pauses again, tilts his head thoughtfully.
“Which I guess makes sense, if he was this Baltimore guy.”
“Do you think she knew that?” Salem asks.
“If she did, she never said. All she ever said about him was he was an old friend, someone she knew back when she first moved here. It’s not until the day she passed on—she had heart disease, at the end—that she told me about him being my father.”
“Was that hard for you?” I could almost admire it, the way Salem changes her tone to ask this—the way she injects it with such convincing concern.
Luís shrugs. “Not so much as most people would think. Always, it was only me and her. If I ever missed having a dad, it must not have been for long, or not so bad that I remember it. She was a good mom to me.” His eyes turn shiny. “The best mom. By my side for everything.”
I look at Tegan, who’s leaned forward, her elbows on the table. She’s not watching Luís; she’s looking at the painting of a woman who wasn’t by her side for anything over the last decade.
My heart aches. I think about reaching out and pinching Adam’s leg. Or I guess tugging on my ear, which would be the safer, non-contact option for stopping this.
But just as I’m about to, Tegan looks away and her gaze catches mine. Instead of doing what I expect her to do—roll her eyes, maybe, or worse, blink and blank out my existence for being sooverprotective—she offers me a small, slightly embarrassed smile before turning back toward Luís.
My heart aches again, in a different way. It’s stretched huge with how I love her.
Luís sniffles once, gathering himself. “And if she had any complicated feelings about the guy, she didn’t show it while he was here. She treated him like an old friend. She treated Libby like a new one. I wouldn’t have ever guessed she had that kind of history with him.”
