She stopped at the door and turned.
“Thank you for coming back,” he said.
She stood in the doorway with the late afternoon behind her and this man in his kitchen looking at her. She set her purse on the table by the door and walked back to him and put her hand on his face.
His skin was warm. His jaw rough under her palm. He closed his eyes and turned his head and pressed his lips to her hand.
They stayed like that for a second. Two people in a kitchen with the light going gold and the flamingo cards on the table, finally finding the shortest distance.
Margo picked up her purse and went to the door.
“Goodnight, Bernard,” she said.
“Goodnight, Margo.”
The door closed behind her. The drive home was short and she knew every turn. Keys in the bowl. The house quiet around her, but a different quiet than before—the kind that still had the warmth of a kitchen in it.
The studio was dark. The canvas on the easel. She stood in front of it and picked up the brush and held it, and the holding was different.
She set it down and went to bed. And for the first time in weeks, she slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Laguna Art Center had good light.
Bea had said this fourteen times during setup, which Stella knew because she’d been counting. Good light was Bea’s highest compliment and her deepest concern and she’d been checking it since they arrived at four o’clock — walking between the walls where her work hung, tilting her head, stepping back, stepping forward, checking the angle at which the afternoon sun came through the skylights and fell across the paintings she’d spent six months making.
“The light is good,” Bea said again, adjusting a frame a quarter inch.
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“It’s important.”
“Fourteen times important?”
Bea gave her a look. Stella raised her camera and took the shot — Bea mid-glare, hands on the frame, the painting behind her catching the skylight. She’d keep that one.
The show opened at six. By six-fifteen the room had people in it — Mr. Reeves from school by the door greeting everyone like it was his living room, a few of Bea’s classmates clustered nearthe refreshments, strangers who’d come because they’d seen the flyer and wanted to look at art on a Friday evening.
And the family.
Tyler and Lindsey came first. Tyler had his good jacket on, which meant Lindsey had told him to wear it. He stood in front of Bea’s largest painting — the one with the light through the Shack windows — and didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he turned to Bea and said “kiddo” and his ears went pink and Lindsey squeezed his arm.
Anna and Michael came next. Anna walked the whole room twice before she spoke to anyone, stopping at each painting, her hand going to her mouth at the third one — the canyon light piece Bea had done from memory after Sedona. Michael stood beside her and said nothing, which was Michael’s way of saying everything. Anna hugged Bea and held on and said something into her hair that Stella couldn’t hear from across the room but could read from Anna’s shoulders, which were shaking.
Meg and Luke arrived with a bottle of Martinelli’s they weren’t allowed to open in the gallery. Meg carried it anyway. “For after,” she said, setting it on the refreshment table next to the sparkling water. Luke looked at the paintings the way Luke looked at the ocean — with patience and attention and the understanding that he was in the presence of something larger than himself.
Joey came in a blazer. Stella had never seen Joey in a blazer. He walked the room systematically, stopping at each painting for exactly the same amount of time, and then found Stella at the corner.
“The spacing is excellent,” he said. “Whoever hung these understood intervals.”
“Bea hung them herself.”
“Figures.” He adjusted his blazer. “I brought a card. Do you think a card is appropriate?”
“A card is perfect, Joey.”
“It’s laminated.”
