Chapter 4
Iwoke up at 7:00 a.m. and took Olivia’s advice, deciding that I’d like to start walking in the morning sun. After taking care of Stevie, I threw on some leggings, put on my sneakers, grabbed a big bottle of water, and took a walk. As I weaved through my neighborhood and felt the cool, early summer morning air, I felt an itch to paint the colors in the sky, the colors blooming under my feet and along the fences.
Why not paint? Olivia had asked me last night. Why hadn’t I been painting more?
I was too busy, was my automatic response. An easy answer. Reflexive like skipping a track in my mind. But I made time for things that mattered to me, I always did. It was how I dedicated the summer to the festival.
Art mattered to me. But it also scared me.
I was rounding the corner back toward my house, my pace slowing. I hadn’t told anyone yet, but I had painted a landscape of the sun setting over downtown Sweet River. I finished it about a month ago. It hid in the back of my closet for a few weeks.
I loved that painting. I almost hung it over my dining room table. Maybe I should’ve, I thought to myself as I pounded up my front porch steps.
A week ago, our principal mentioned that the local children’s hospital was taking donations for their online auction. Immediately that painting popped in my mind. The painting had been my evening escape, like another kind of therapy—my break from the rest of the world, my own reacquainting with myself.
I came home after work that day, and without much thought, I plucked the canvas from my closet and drove it down to the hospital. To my surprise, they received it with open arms.
I kept checking the auction website because I halfway expected them to quietly never list it, having only accepted it feeling bad for that woman who thought she was a real artist with a real painting. That all my worst, secret insecurities about my art would be affirmed casually and by people I didn’t even know.
But they listed it.
When the auction began, it was one of the first pieces to go and for a price that made me gasp.
That night, with a momentary rise in my confidence, I secretly made an online shop to sell my artwork.
Weeks later, I hadn’t revisited the shop since that first night. I kept asking myself…Who do I think I am trying to pass myself off as an artist? This question continued to cycle in my mind as I turned the key in my front door.
Iwas standing in my kitchen making another pot of coffee when there was a light knock on the door. I knew that quick knock well because it never waited for an answer. It was always accompanied by Mom opening the door and saying, “Hello, my girls!”
This time she had a Tupperware of double chocolate chip cookies in her arms as she said it.
“Okay, so these are fresh.” She shook the container as she crossed the living room”s open space toward the kitchen. “I decided to drop them off. Also, Olivia texted me and told me I need to come over here for some news?”
Oh. I hadn’t told Mom what happened with the festival. Olivia probably wanted her to hear it from me first. Mom had emotion and memory tied up with it, too.
“She’s probably wanting me to tell you about what happened.” I leaned against the kitchen island on my forearms.
“What happened?” My mom’s eyes creased with worry.
I told her the whole story as she pulled a couple of plates out of my cabinet and we ate who knows how many cookies.
“This Adam sure is a little snarky,” my mom said, shaking her head in disbelief. “But I’m sure he’d met his match in you. I know what a little spitfire you can be.”
“I wasn’t being a spitfire, not really.” I dusted a few cookie crumbs off my fingers. “I was frustrated and caught off guard?—”
Then we heard the door open and in swept Olivia. “Guys!” she squealed as the door fell closed behind her.
Olivia was beaming, brighter than the late morning sun streaming in through the windows. “Mom, you got my text!”
“Yeah, honey, Lucy was just filling me in on the news,” Mom said, gesturing toward me.
“What?” Olivia was suddenly confused. “How do you know anything?” She looked to me.
“About the festival?” I asked. We were obviously missing something.
“My news isn’t about the festival. I have my own news!” She dropped her bags on the couch and with slow, anticipatory steps walked over to us.
Mom and I waited for her news, glancing at one another in curiosity. All was quiet except the coffee maker brewing another pot like Olivia’s own makeshift drumroll.
She was bouncing. A lightness in her. “I bought a house!”