Page 164 of The Right Kind of Wrong

This felt different, though.

When she’d started working on the show, she’d been a completely different person. She poured her emotion into her art because she didn’t have the ability to show emotion in her real life.

And now, her work and her life blended together, moments of happiness and sadness and frustration and jealousy flowing back and forth between the paintings she produced and the world she lived in.

At first, it had made her feel stuck.

But now?

It was like she’d unlocked some new level of her process and potential, where the possibilities were endless.

All because she’d stopped being too scared to let people in.

Even if meeting Blake had meant she could never paint another stroke again, it would have been worth it.

Blake would have been worth it.

Monroe knew that without a doubt.

She smiled, running her fingers along the smooth corner of one of the smaller paintings. It was of a woman. The canvas was mostly dark, with shadows falling across the main figure, who was pushing a bright yellow cleaning cart, her back to the viewer, hunched over.

She hadn’t realized until she’d been done that it was her mother.

Except, that wasn’t how she remembered Kendra Lockhart.

Her mom was funny and loving and always tried her best in spite of the difficulties life had unrelentingly hurled at her.

So, just for herself, she’d painted another piece. A portrait of her mom in younger years, smiling at something out of view. Monroe liked to imagine that it was her and Dean, showing her how Monroe had mastered one of the games that her brother had built.

Remembering her mom like that made her happy. It made her feel less alone, even though Kendra was gone.

She’d raised Monroe into the woman that she’d become. And she’d raised Maisie, without reservation, for as long as she could, setting the foundation for the incredible woman that her niece had the chance to become, all because she’d been so loved right from the jump.

Monroe had spent too long feeling sorry for the life that her mom had led instead of celebrating all the good that she’d accomplished in it.

Monroe wasn’t going to make that mistake anymore.

She groaned when a knock on the door sounded through the house. Someone was always canvassing. Solar panel people. Kids raising funds for next year’s summer camps—or something similar; Monroe was never really sure based on their quick and garbled “sales pitches.” Pest control people. Way too many religions, all professing that they followed the one true god.

She considered not answering it, but a knock sounded again, louder.

When she opened the door, she was already frowning.

The frown deepened significantly when she realized who was waiting for her on the other side.

“What are you doing here, Sylvia?”

“Monroe, is that any way to greet your benefactor?” Sylvia said, pushing easily past her and into the living room.

Monroe shut the door behind her. “Sure. Come on in.”

“I flew in to review the pieces ahead of them being packed tomorrow.”

Irritation flared through Monroe, but she tried to keep a lid on it. Sylvia was notoriously dramatic when she felt it was warranted. The best thing that Monroe could do was not feed into the pageantry. “I sent you the photos that the gallery will use for advertising. You can clearly see that everything is done and accounted for.”

Sylvia looked around the living room. “This is . . . quaint.”

Easy to judge when Sylvia was living in a house handed down through her family, with a trust fund that had ensured she’d never have had to work a day in her life.