It never ceased to amaze Amy how much of what she said went right over the heads of the men in her life. This child before her was in the honors chemistry program, and yet, he couldn’t retain a thing she said. Even Ethan, her thirteen-year-old going on eighty, the kid with the deep thoughts and terrible anxiety, who was, at that moment, studying madly for his last exam of the semester before the winter break, who just a month ago told her he loved her so much that he might live with her when he grew up, never seemed to hear her. “I am not going to the store, Jonah. I am going up to the lake for two weeks. Remember? I’m going to go paint? Remember how everyone was cheering me on when we had cake last night? Remember how Grandma and Grandpa were here, and everyone said this was so great and how lucky I was to have the time and space to paint? How great it was that I sold a painting at the art gallery?”
Kevin had just wandered outside with a cup of coffee, and she asked him, “You remember, don’t you, Kevin?”
“The speech? Yeah, I remember it. Went on a little too long, I thought.”
“Thanks,” Amy said.
Jonah looked momentarily confused. “That’s today? I thought it was like…later.”
“Nope. That’s why the cake last night and why I said to you, just thirty minutes ago, to be good and that I’d see you in two weeks. If you need a hoodie washed, ask your Uncle Kevin.”
“Hey!” Kevin said in protest.
“Your dad is picking you up tomorrow after school. Make sure you’re packed!”
“Okay. But what about my hoodie and the Hot Pockets?” The child-man seemed genuinely confused and concerned.
“Love you!” Amy had called with a cheery, can’t-wait-to-be-gone wave. But before she climbed into her car where Duchess was waiting for her, she had a last thought and dashed inside, past her man-child and brother, up the stairs (huffing at the top), and into Ethan’s room. He was bent over his impeccably neat desk, his Chromebook glowing.
“Hey, buddy, I’m leaving. Are you going to be all right?” she asked him.
Ethan didn’t even turn. “No. I’m going to fail biology, and I’m supposed to begoodat biology.”
“You have an A in biology, Ethan. You always think you’re going to fail, and you never do.” Amy put her hand on her son’s head. “Don’t get worked up. If you don’t make the grade you want on the final, you have a whole other semester to bring your grade up to the top again.”
Ethan cast a look in her direction that brought to mind an old man tired of life. “The test is thirty percent of the grade, Mom.” His tone suggested she should know this and appreciate that disaster was so clearly looming.
Amy knew how quickly this could spiral—that she could end up tryingto convince him for thirty minutes that he would make A’s again this year and that he should not worry about the future and what would happen if he didn’t get straight A’s. How could one little body carry so much anxiety?
As images of that well-worn path loomed in her mind, images of a swanky lake house popped up to battle them. A beautiful lake house mansion, all hers for two whole weeks.
“Ethan? You’re going to be fine. Don’t make yourself sick with worry, okay? If you need me, call me. But talk to Dad first.” She planted a kiss on the top of his head—and immediately fretted about when the last time was he’d bathed—but headed out, wearing her internal badge of motherhood shame for leaving her son in the throes of a budding panic attack. Kevin had slunk off somewhere by the time she returned to the drive, so Amy took the opportunity to throw herself in her minivan. She texted Ryan to tell him that Ethan was stressing over an exam and to pay attention to him. And then she’d strapped in next to Duchess in her doggy seat booster, cranked up her Pearl Jam playlist, and hit the highway.
The farther away she moved from her house, the freer she felt from the mind-numbing responsibilities of work, home, of raising teens, of consoling a brother; of fending off the attempts of her ex-husband, Ryan, to reconcile. She was free of her parents’ frequent, unannounced drop-ins, of laundry, of a million questions her family asked about this or that. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been all alone, and she couldn’t wait for the solitude.
She was so grateful for this gift from Julie. And what about that check for five hundred smackers in her purse? Someone had bought her art! Someone out there boughtherart and paidhundredsof dollars for it.
It was such a small painting, too—an acrylic oil scene from her backyard, mostly shades of green, with a red birdhouse and gold wind chimes, and Duchess lying in the grass on a red checkered tablecloth, her head away from the viewer, working on a bone. It looked like a perfect summerday, but without the heat of summer. When Amy had finished the painting, she’d noted some things she’d done well, and things she thought she could improve. The style was a sort of Postimpressionist rendering, in which she’d played with the sunlight in the garden to the extent that the scene began to look hazily real to her. She’d given herself a B for effort.
It was her friend Gabriella who happened to see the painting and urged her to take it to the Hillside Art Gallery. “You know the day-trippers who come here would love that. You could make some money.”
Money certainly aroused Amy’s curiosity. She had a decent salary, but there never seemed to be enough for all the things the boys needed. She’d never set out to sell her art; she’d just wanted to do something for herself. Something that belonged to her and her only, that didn’t have fingerprints or ketchup stains or a schedule attached to it. Amy’s life was that of a single mom—two kids who needed ferrying and feeding, and a full-time job running the human resources department of Cross Tie Innovations (where, in fact, she was theonlyHR employee), a small manufacturing plant that made railroad ties and railyard tools. Meaning, she spent most of her time explaining to men why they couldn’t say the things they liked to say anymore.
And her brother, Kevin, who had failed at his last relationship and then bailed on his job, was living in her house until he could come up with a “plan.” That plan had been in the making for four months and counting.
Her parents, Barb and Bob Anderson, both retired, both with too much time on their hands, were always dropping in when she finally had a day to relax. Sometimes together, sometimes apart, and always wanting to stay and chat.
And last, but not least, her ex-husband, Ryan. Amy sighed aloud. They’d separated three years ago, divorced a year after that, all at Ryan’s behest. Ryan, who felt like he’d married too young, who hadn’t been able to live enough of his life before he’d had responsibilities. Ryan, who said life had passed him by before he even knew what was happening. Whoadmitted, after Amy discovered he’d had a dalliance with a woman at his firm, that he’d been so young he hadn’t “gotten to experience other women, really.” Like that was a thing. Maybe it was, but it wasn’t to Amy.
Ryan, who had, as of the last few months, decided he’d made a mistake and wanted to reconcile.
Amy did not want to reconcile. She’d noticed, after he’d gone, that there was a lot less complaining and whining without him around. Coincidence? She thought not.
Anyway, Amy had taken her painting to the Hillside Art Gallery on the square in downtown Willow Valley. Willow Valley was just a thirty-minute drive from McKinney, Texas. It was one of those charming country town destinations people flocked to for art festivals, music concerts, and eclectic shopping. The town was run by Mayor Kelly Hodges, whom Amy and Julie had gone to high school with. Kelly had invested a lot of time, effort, and money into billing the town as quintessential Texas. In fact, that was her new slogan. “Willow Valley, Quintessential Texas.”
“Not a cowboy or honky-tonk in sight,” Julie liked to point out. “It’s not quintessential Texas, it’s quintessential Nora Ephron.”
Anyway, Ms. Hix, who’d run the art gallery for centuries, said she’d put Amy’s painting on the wall with all the other local artists. (Ms. Hix didn’t blink an eye or chuckle or roll her eyes when she lumped Amy in with “artists.”) She said they’d see what happened.
