Cassie's excited squeal pulls me back from my reverie. "Mom, look! The crab is dancing!" Her cries of delight pepper the air, bringing with them a renewed sense of joy. I watch as she skips back toward us, holding an imaginary dance partner in her arms. Her face is flushed with excitement, her eyes aglow with a childlike glee that is contagious. I can’t help but laugh as she twirls around, her feet leaving small indentations on the sandy ground.
“Miss Sara is thinking of having a painting done of the lighthouse,” I tell her as she joins us on the porch. “What do you think of that?”
Cassie’s face lights up at the idea. “Really? That would be amazing. I could do it,” she adds, her fingers already sketchingshapes in the air. “I’ll use all the colors, bright ones that sparkle just like it does in the sunlight.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Sara replies. “But I was thinking it might be nice to have a professional do it. Someone who could really capture the spirit of the place.”
“Okay, but I’ll make one too. That way we can have two paintings, and they can be friends just like us.”
Sara laughs, her eyes mirroring the mirth in Cassie's. "That's a brilliant idea. I can't wait to see your masterpiece."
“Who are you thinking of commissioning?” I ask, turning my attention back to Sara.
She crosses her legs, the faded denim of her jeans catching the dying sunlight. "There's a man in town… someone new to the area who has a studio down by the boardwalk. Apparently, he specializes in seascapes. I thought it might be worth approaching him.”
“What’s his name?” Cassie asks, as if she is already planning to personally vet him.
Sara chuckles, shaking her head at Cassie’s eagerness. “I believe his name is Nathan. Ever heard of him?”
Cassie shakes her head, her brows furrowed in deep thought as if she’s trying to mop up a trace of this stranger from the fabric of her memory. “Nope, not ringing any bells.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Sara responds. “He only moved into town recently.”
“Then we should meet him,” Cassie says. “Maybe he can teach me how to paint the lighthouse right.”
Sara smiles at Cassie’s energetic optimism. “Perhaps he will. And who knows, maybe he could even help your mother with her story.” She winks at me. “Artists see the world differently, you know. He might just provide the inspiration she needs.”
4
Nathan
The first thing I notice about the new studio is the way the light migrates, hour by hour, from the far-right window to the left, dragging the horizon with it. I’ve spent the morning tracking its path, aligning easels and half-unpacked canvases to catch the blunt yellow spill. The room itself is twice the size I’m used to, complete with echoing floors, scuffed walls, the faint smell of old turpentine and fresh paint.
I set a row of empty jars on the edge of the worktable, rinse them under the sink, and towel them dry. My hands still remember the move from Charlotte, bubble-wrapping my entire life into boxes, labeling them in a handwriting I barely recognize.Fragile, Bedroom, Studio.Each word a minor betrayal, a reminder of what I’d left behind and what I still owed to someone who had once considered me indispensable.
The seascape waits for me on the easel, half-finished. I circle it like a suspicious dog, stepping back, squinting, testing my own resolve. The sky is wrong. Too clean, too sterile, a digital blue that doesn’t exist for screensavers and airline brochures. I load the brush with cerulean and titanium, drag it horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally again, trying to pull some weightinto the upper third of the canvas. I want it to look like it feels outside, which is to say, not beautiful but urgent, the whole world threatening to evaporate in a single gust.
Charlotte is still with me, of course. Not the city itself but the phantom ache of the life I’d assembled there. The high-rise apartment, curated down to the mid-century credenza and the bowl of unripe fruit. The assurance at parties of always being “Nathan, the finance guy, but also an artist, did you know that?” The clockwork precision of waking at six, running before work, the Friday gallery crawls, the occasional weekend trip to the mountains. None of it had survived the rupture.
Now, the only clock is the one inside my head, and it runs on guilt, regret, and the occasional surge of panic. A palette knife falls to the floor, and I crouch to retrieve it, knees popping in protest. On my way up I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the studio window. My hair is longer than it’s ever been, shirt spattered with Prussian blue, mouth set in a line I don’t remember learning. I look older, which makes sense, but I also look something else. Less domesticated. I try to decide if I like it.
Back at the easel, I tackle the horizon line. It refuses to sit still, keeps threatening to slide up or down, obliterating the illusion of depth I’m supposed to be creating. I realize that the ocean doesn’t have a horizon. It’s all horizon, an infinite plane of division. Maybe that’s why I came here, to stare at a boundary that never resolves, to stand on the edge of something and not be asked to cross it.
When the paint begins to congeal, I switch to the smaller brushes, detailing the foam and the suggestion of wind in the grass. I lose track of the hour, which is both a relief and a threat. The longer I stay here, the more likely I am to convince myself that this, the act of making and remaking the same strip of coastline, is enough. The jar of turpentine turns a cloudy blue.I swap it for fresh, then set the dirty liquid on the windowsill where it will catch the light and refract into a watery prism.
It’s only when I reach for the palette that I see the old watch sitting in the supply bin. The band is leather, or was, once. Now, it’s cracked and blotched with oil paint, the face frozen at 7:04. I don’t remember putting it there. I pick it up, trace a finger around the bezel, then toss it back in. It lands atop my old business card holder, which now does service as a tube squeezer for the more stubborn paints. I like to think this is progress.
The last time I saw her—Melissa, not the watch—we met in a park halfway between her office and my apartment. It was August, still fever-hot, and we sat on separate benches like defendants at our own trial. She wore her black glasses, the ones that made her look both severe and heartbreakingly young, and talked about “next steps.” I nodded, and apologized, and tried to remember when exactly I’d become so replaceable.
Now, I fill the silence with the drag of brushes and the shifting palette of the morning. Outside, the wind threatens rain. The colors on the canvas darken in anticipation. I’m losing the battle for realism but gaining something else, a rough vitality that I don’t quite know how to name. I step back and try to see the work as a stranger might. I fail.
The sound of footsteps catches me off guard. The boardwalk is mostly empty. The locals are still bundled up against the spring chill. A moment later, a knock at the door. Not a polite, social knock, but a determined three-count. I consider pretending I’m not here, but curiosity wins out, as it always does. I set my brush down, wipe my hands on my jeans, and move to answer.
On the other side of the gallery door, I find a woman leaning on the jamb, chin lifted in appraisal. She wears a pea-green windbreaker and old jeans cuffed above hiking boots, her salt-colored hair tucked behind her ears. Up close, you cansee the tiny tremor in her left hand, the way she corrects for it by clutching the handle of her oversized tote. She smiles at me, businesslike, suggesting she’s already mapped out the next several minutes of our interaction.
“Mr. Garner,” she says, as if she’s been here dozens of times before. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” I motion her inside. “And it’s just Nathan.” I try to sound casual, but the paint on my forearm and the mess of brushes on every available surface conspire to make me appear more feral than professional.