“Yeah,” he says, “much better.”
When I finally walk him to the door, I catch a glimpse of the hallway mirror, the two of us reflected side by side, no longer strangers, not quite family, but something sturdy enough to lean on.
He touches my shoulder, light as a feather. “You’re doing better than you think.”
I want to believe it. Maybe tomorrow I will.
When the door clicks shut, I hold Sara’s keys in my palm. They’re warm from my pocket, heavy with all the things I’m afraid to lose. I stand there for a long minute, listening to the house settle.
Upstairs, my desk waits. The manuscript, too—every page a piece of my heart, every sentence a risk.
I turn on another lamp, and the darkness recedes.
44
Diane
NOVEMBER
The light out here comes sideways, briny and bright, filling the town with a diffused, syrupy radiance that makes everything look like a painting. The gallery is only a few blocks from the ocean, so we walk, because that’s what you do here, and because Cassie insists she’ll explode if she has to endure another car ride with us.
I let her lead the way, and Nathan falls back, giving her room. The wind lifts Cassie’s hair, and for a second I see the child she was, the one with legs too long for her body, intent on outrunning every shadow. Then Amaya materializes on the next corner, waving both arms, dark curls backlit in the haze. Her smile is all teeth and constellation freckles.
“Hey!” Amaya calls, bounding up the sidewalk. “You’re late!”
“We’re two minutes early,” Cassie says, but she’s grinning.
Amaya clutches a pamphlet, glossy and already dog-eared. “I made Mom stop by and grab a program on the way. Look, you’re in it.” She stabs her finger at the page.
Cassie’s mouth quirks sideways, a little bashful, but she lets Amaya thread their arms together. They could be sisters insteadof best friends, the kind who would share a bedroom and fight over the top bunk. I am not supposed to watch them this way, but I do. Sometimes I think it’s the only way I’ll ever remember what joy looks like from the outside.
We arrive at the gallery, and Nathan holds open the door. “Showtime,” he says.
When I step inside, what I see takes my breath away. It’s an entire chronology of this patch of coast, rendered in brushstrokes so soft they’ll shatter if you touch them. There are rolling dunes in muted ochres and blue-violet shadows, a sunrise over the salt marsh, the pier at twilight, its pilings reflected in shattered mirror-water. In the back room are portraits, faces I’ve seen at the bakery, the post office, on the other side of a PTA table. All of them painted in Nathan’s unmistakable style, alive with the subtlety of things seen in passing but remembered in full color.
And in the very center, spotlit and hung a little lower than the rest, is the painting I’d only glimpsed in progress. My breath stutters at the sight of it. It’s me, Cassie, and Rolo, standing at the tide line under a sky peeled back for sunset. Cassie’s hair is wind-ravaged and she’s beaming, mid-laugh, her sneakers soaked through. Rolo’s tongue lolls in a perfect pink curve, and I’m caught off guard by my own likeness—eyes closed, head tipped toward the horizon, wearing an expression that is pure, unmitigated peace.
I squeeze Nathan’s hand so hard he laughs.
“Too much?” he asks, but the way he looks at me makes my heart gallop.
The room fills gradually, the guests trickling in. Some I know, others I’ve only met in passing, but every face turns toward Nathan with the same shy, proprietary pride, as if this gallery, this show, belongs to all of them.
Nathan fiddles with his tie, a deep navy color that almost matches the shadows in his paintings. It’s new, and I can tell he’s dying to loosen it, but he endures for the sake of the occasion. His cheeks flush whenever someone compliments the work, which is often, and the more he fidgets the more I want to grab his face and kiss him senseless, social norms be damned.
Instead, I nurse a glass of white wine and try not to spill on my new dress. The fabric is lighter than I’m used to, a soft coral that Cassie insisted would “bring out my inner beach goddess,” whatever that means. I think of Sara, how she would have laughed at my discomfort and then worn something even louder, just to make me look tame by comparison.
I am drifting in a cloud of distant memory when a woman approaches, her hair coiled into a chignon and her eyes sharp as salt. She’s wearing a navy blue shift dress and a single string of pearls, and she radiates the brisk authority of someone who sits on a lot of boards.
“Diane, right?” she says, extending a hand. “I’m Barbara. My husband, Chuck, used to work with Sara at the courthouse.”
I accept the handshake, surprised at the strength in her grip. “Nice to meet you.”
Barbara’s gaze flicks to Nathan, who is deep in conversation with a pair of college-age boys gesturing at the dune paintings like they’re trying to decode a secret language. “You’ve done something remarkable with the old Hastings house,” she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “We worried it would go to ruin after—well. After everything.”
I blink, momentarily thrown. “Thank you. We’re trying.”
Barbara leans in, her pearls glinting. “You’re the talk of the town, you know. Some of us had bets on how long you’d last.”