She walks to the exact spot where she was sitting that day, where I first saw her drawing roadkill and recognized her as a kindred spirit.
And then she stops.
"Dom."
Something in her voice makes me cross to her immediately.
There, on the side of the road, is a dead fox.
Obviously not the same one that was there last year, but the same kind of animal, the same kind of death. Fresh, maybe a day old. The body still intact, the fur still beautiful despite the brutality of whatever killed it.
Roxy stares at it for a long moment.
Then she starts laughing. Not hysterical laughter or even nervous laughter. Just pure, delighted recognition of the universe's perfect timing.
"It's a sign," she says.
"It’s fucking creepy is what it is."
"It’s the universe giving us a callback."
"Or just coincidence."
"There's no such thing as coincidence." She pulls out her phone and starts taking photographs. "This is perfect. This isexactlywhat I needed."
I watch her work as she pulls out her sketchbook, the same sketchbook she was using when we met. Worn and stained and filled with drawings of truth.
She sits on the ground, cross-legged, and starts to work. I stand watch, scanning the road for cars, for witnesses, for anything that might interrupt this moment. But there's nothing. Just us and the desert and the dead fox highlighted by the setting sun.
Roxy draws for twenty minutes, her hand moving across the paper with absolute certainty. When she's done, she holds up the sketchbook to show me.
It's beautiful.
The fox rendered in charcoal and graphite, every detail perfect. The sadness of death made sacred through art.
"This is going in the second portfolio," she says.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Full circle. The roadside where it all began. The same subject. But now it's not just documenting time, it's art. It's celebrated and worth twenty thousand dollars to someone in Tokyo or Berlin or London."
The second portfolio is now complete. Twenty-six pieces. Berlin, San Diego, LA, Tokyo and now Utah.
She stands and crosses to me, the sketchbook still in her hand.
"We made it," she says.
"Yeah. We did."
"London in six weeks," Roxy says.
"I can’t wait."
"And then?"
"Paris. Berlin again. São Paulo. Wherever the work takes us."
"The road continues."
