Chapter 61
Climbing the steps with my bouquet of honeysuckle flowers, no less, doesn’t help eradicate thoughts of Camryn. Her sweetness. Her kindness to my dead family.
I left her bed long before she woke up, the faint milky morning light shining through the window.
As I dressed, collecting my gun and clothing, I watched her, palming my dick anticipating the moment I returned to this bed and could keep her up all night .
and head to my apartment to shower, I promised myself that once I finished visiting with my mother, I was going to take her upstairs and tie her sexy ass to that bed and fuck her using those butt plugs until she too hoarse to speak and too sore to walk.
The nurses wave at me and I wave back, eager to get to my mother’s room. I want to get lost in the ritual of reading to her. See her face. Hopefully, she’s having a good day. “How is she doing?”
“Oh wonderful. No issues. She’s painting.”
“Painting?” I frown. My mother has never painted a day in her life.
“Yes. A local painter volunteered her services every Thursday. She donates her paintings once she’s done. Seems she’s taken a shine to your mother.”
Something feels off about it, and my mind calibrates the possibilities that this could be Los Mestizos, like the donuts.
I open the door to my mother’s room to find her sitting by her window.
She is humming, dipping a paintbrush into a glass of water, and swirling the murky liquid.
I raise a brow at her painting. A dark-haired angel.
I wonder if her subconscious mind recognizes that the subject of the painting bears a resemblance to her granddaughter.
She turns and smiles. “Stefan. You’re home early.”
I nod, not correcting her that I’m not home from high school. Her memories are stuck there.
“What are you painting?”
“An angel.” She smiles and dabs at the painting, adding more brown to the hair.
Turning, I freeze when I see the new paintings on the wall parallel to her bed.
I look around my mother’s room at her paintings and then the one in the corner.
I recognize the lines. The mix of textiles.
She painted my mother, not in her room, but standing by the ocean.
Before she got dementia, she would drag us to the shores of Long Island.
We would collect seashells. There is sand, shells, and gauzy fabric trailing from my mother’s portrait.
I can feel the sand and the breeze, the way she created the piece.
I take in the rest. An ethereal painting of a king.
An angel. They surround her room. I step closer, my heart beating.
The last painting hits me right in the chest. It’s me.
I’m standing between two ghostly figures, holding their hands.
The more petite figure is looking up at me.
A smile graces my face as I look down at the white outline of the child.
Angel. I know those strokes. I recognize the style. I’ve seen it before.
Camryn.
Camryn’s paintings are on my mother’s walls.