Chapter 5
DELPHINE
I’d only just gotten to the gallery when the paintings arrived for my new show.
There were six large canvases wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap, each one heavier than it looked.
I signed for them, tipped the delivery guys, and stood alone in the gallery with the smell of cardboard and packing tape, delighted to unwrap each one of Maren Solberg’s paintings.
She was a Norwegian-born painter living in Savannah who worked in enormous, moody ocean abstracts—layers of blue and gray and green that made you feel like you were standing at the edge of the ocean. They gave me that same feeling of smallness compared to the vast, deep blue sea.
They were going to sell beautifully. I knew that the moment I'd first seen her portfolio six months ago. I also knew, the moment I'd said yes to hosting the show, that hanging them would be difficult.
Although Jon had been interested in seascapes, his were a much different style than Maren’s, painstakingly real, detailed, and full of light.
He’d sometimes spend a week on a single wave, just to get the right flow of movement.
When we first met at art school, I'd stood in front of one of his paintings and felt the salt air on my skin. That's how good he was. When he stopped painting, I should have been more worried than I was. But frankly, I’d just not had the energy. Annie was four when his depression took a deeper turn for the worse, staying in bed all day, skipping meals, and watching golf. Which was odd, because he never played golf once in his life. Regardless, I was struggling to keep it all together. This was before I met my best friends on Annie’s first day of kindergarten.
Those women saved my life more than once.
I positioned the first canvas against the wall and stepped back to judge the height.
Too low. I adjusted the wire, measured again.
Hanging art was geometry, gauging where the eye would land when someone walked through the door.
Additionally, one piece must lead to the next and so on, almost like a story.
As I worked, my mind kept drifting back to my conversation with Dorian Flynn.
I hadn’t meant to share so much about my life or how Jon’s death had changed everything.
I’d gone in with a plan to really let him have it and had walked out feeling more at peace than I had in a long time.
Plus, I’d sat on the floor with his cat, and told him I’d always wanted a cat.
Explain that, I thought.
I can’t, I said back to myself.
I hung the second canvas and stood back. The blue in this one was darker, almost black at the center, like the ocean at night.
The infuriating part was that Dorian hadn't done anything clever.
He hadn't disarmed me with charm or pushed me into some emotional corner.
He'd just stood there looking as handsome as ever, apologizing more than was necessary, and being so maddeningly decent that I'd run out of things to be angry about. And when I ran out of anger, I wasn’t sure where to go next.
It was a vast black hole. When I reached out for some kind of footing, all I came back with was exactly nothing.
I climbed the stepladder to adjust the third painting's wire. From up here I could see the whole gallery—the clean white walls, the polished wood floor, the morning light coming through the front windows. When the previous owner had retired, we’d worked out a deal for me to buy him out.
I’d not been sure I could run it by myself, but I’d vowed to give it everything I had.
For whatever reason, I had an eye for what would sell.
My first show on my own sold out. After that, I knew I could do it.
Giving artists a place to sell their beautiful work thrilled me then and it still did.
The gallery had only been mine for six months when I’d gotten pregnant.
Even though she’d been an easy baby, there were still many nights I got only a few hours sleep, and I’d dragged myself into the gallery, usually with her strapped to my chest. I’d felt like a single mother back then, even though Jon was still with us.
I hung the fourth canvas. This one was lighter in color, a pale blue and silver, almost translucent, like the ocean in early morning before the wind picks up. It was the gentlest piece in the collection, having a calming effect on me and I suspected anyone who saw it.
A sudden, unwelcome thought—Dorian’s sensitive blue eyes were the same as the water in the painting.
I shook my head and whispered out loud, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
My mind tumbled back to what Dorian’s mother had said about being a single mother. The hardest part of raising him alone wasn't the work or the exhaustion, but that there was no one at the end of the day who loved her son as much as she did. No one to say, we have an awesome kid.
I’d not articulated it that way for myself but, the moment he said it, I’d thought, yes, exactly that.
Over the years, my best friends had filled the gap.
We made it a priority to show up for the others’ children.
Games, school plays, science project nights, birthday parties.
Any accomplishment, we’d celebrated together.
Yet, somehow, it was not the same as having a partner. A father for Annie.
One who thought she hung the moon. One who would stay.
I’d not known Dorian’s mother well but the interactions I’d had with her were always positive.
In fact, after Jon died and I was so lost, she suggested Enchanted April.
I’d come into the shop hoping to find something uplifting but had wandered around, not really seeing anything at all, lost in grief.
She sensed it and had come over to make a suggestion.
It was exactly what I’d needed. Published in 1922, Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim was about four English women who rented a medieval Italian castle for the month of April to escape their dreary London lives.
It was a warm, gently comic story about renewal and the way a beautiful setting can soften people.
It had deeply moved me and inspired me to plant a garden.
I’d put the house I’d shared with Jon on the market and bought my cottage.
Then I’d started planting. Flowers. Shrubs.
Trees. Digging into dirt, babying my fledging plants, diligently watering and fertilizing.
I’d even had dirt delivered by a truck and dumped in the yard.
Growing and nurturing plants and flowers had gotten me through the darkest period of my life.
For that, I would be eternally grateful to Maureen Flynn.
I tightened the wire on the fifth painting and remembered Poe climbing into my bag and giggled, sounding odd in the empty room.
What had possessed the orange fur ball to climb in my bag and then on to my lap?
Whatever his reason, he had fully charmed me.
Maybe I would get a cat. Or two. I certainly didn’t want them to have that lonely kitten syndrome. I would never do that to a kitten.
I hung the last painting and climbed down from the ladder. Six enormous oceans now lined the walls of my gallery. Tomorrow was the official opening, with wine and light appetizers. The artist would be there to answer questions and mingle, as would I.
I straightened the final frame by a quarter inch and went to my office to answer emails, my designer pumps making a satisfying click on the hardwood floors. The sound of competence. A woman who had it all together. Even if it was only a persona.
I met Seraphina for lunch at The Pelican. As she often did, she arrived five minutes late, apologizing that she’d lost track of time.
“I was in the flow, and time got away from me,” she said as she slid into the booth across the table from me.
I just nodded.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Seraphina tucked a lock of her red hair behind one ear and peered at me.
“I think you know.”
“I do?”
“Where were you Thursday evening? Around seven, let’s say.”
She let out a long sigh, glancing down at the table. “Oh, that.”
“How did you think it was okay to take her there without telling me? Or asking me?”
She put her hands up, clearly on the defensive. “I didn’t want to. But she begged me to take her. I can’t resist her. You know that.”
“You’re too soft. On all of the kids.”
“Maybe.”
“You are,” I said. “And this time it wasn’t saying yes to ice cream. I’m mad.”
“I can see that.”
“And?” I waited for the apology. Apparently, she wasn’t as quick to mea culpa as Dorian Flynn.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you …”
“But?” I waited.
“But I’m not sorry. She really opened up to me on the way home, telling me all about the way it was run and how she’d felt like everyone there understood her. You cannot tell me that’s a bad thing.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. Why had Annie shared that with Seraphina and not her own mother?
You know why.
That wicked voice that lived in my gut, poking holes in the lining of my stomach, whispered in my ear.
You only see what you want to see.
“She’s not going back,” I said.
“There’s a teen group. She really wants to go, and I think you should let her.”
“Since when did you start telling me how to parent?” I asked.
“I’m simply giving you my opinion,” Seraphina said, looking hurt.
A young server with a name tag that read Melanie came by to take our drink and lunch orders.
“How’s Hunter?” Melanie asked Seraphina.
“He’s very well,” Seraphina said. “In fact, he’s in Nashville this week, working on some songs with some friends of his.”
“We miss him around here,” Melanie said. “But it’s great to hear he’s living his best life. He deserves it.”
“That’s kind of you, thank you,” Seraphina said. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
Melanie left us, promising to return with our ice teas.
“Does it bother you that Hunter’s constantly in Nashville?” I asked.
“He’s not constantly there. Maybe once a month.
And no, it doesn’t bother me. I understand the life of an artist. Anyway, it gives me time to work obsessively while he’s gone so that when he comes home I have more time to spend with him.
It works for us. We have mutual understanding of what our professions demand. ”
Hunter Sloan, Seraphina’s new husband, was a country music songwriter.
Up until he and Seraphina started dating, he’d worked as a bartender at The Pelican.
No one had known at that time how many hit songs he’d written before coming to live in Willet Cove.
Now that he and Seraphina were married, he was back to writing again.
Good for them, I thought, even though it made me feel kind of jealous and mean.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I made you mad,” Seraphina said. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve lost a few nights of sleep over it.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “That does make me feel a little better.”
“I only want the best for you and Annie. I hope you know that.”
“I do. Of course I do.” Anger lifted from me like the fog over our local beach at mid-morning.
“Why does it bother you that she wants to go to one of these groups?” Seraphina asked.
I was saved from having to answer because Melanie arrived with our ice teas. After she left, Seraphina asked me again. “Seriously, why? Do you know?”
“I don’t like the idea that she has to get help from outside the family,” I said.
“Right. The whole Delphine Delacroix independence thing. Even when relying on others could be in your best interest.”
“I rely on the four of you,” I said.
“Not as much as you should,” Seraphina said. “It won’t cost you anything to share what’s really going on in your head, you know. Or to admit when you need help.”
“I don’t need help. That’s just the point. Which is why I don’t need you interfering with Annie. I’m her mother.”
“I’m sorry.” Seraphina’s green eyes misted over. “I didn’t know what to do. She begged me. When I think of what she’s gone through, what she saw—it just breaks my heart.”
“Yeah, I know. It does mine too.” I ripped open a bag of sugar and dumped it into my tea. “I’m going to let her go to the teen one.”
“Oh, that’s great.” Seraphina dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
“Did you know Dorian Flynn attends the support group?” I blurted out.
One auburn-hued eyebrow shot up. “Annie mentioned it. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
“Did Annie tell you he was there?” Seraphina asked.
“Yes.”
“And?” Seraphina prompted.
I told her the story of discovering the book and Annie’s confession, then my hot, mad dash to the Ink & Anchor to give Dorian a piece of my mind. “He apologized right away.”
“For what exactly? Talking about a book that was helping him?” Seraphina asked. “Allowing her to buy it?”
Anger flared. Mostly because I knew she was right. “It’s not as simple as that,” I said.
“Sure.”
“Seraphina, you’re totally insufferable since you got married.”
She smiled, her eyes sympathetic. “I know. But back to Dorian. How did he handle scary Delphine and her fury?”
“As I said, he apologized and was decent about the whole thing. Completely disarmed me. And then there’s that cat.”
“Poe?” Seraphina asked.
“Yeah. He climbed into my bag and then my lap.” I told her the whole story, which made her laugh.
“I remember when Poe showed up at the bookstore,” Seraphina said.
“Back when Dorian’s mother was still alive.
She was such a hoot about that cat, telling everyone he was now the store mascot.
The customers loved him right away. Personally, it adds to the ambiance of the place.
Do you remember the time he sat on my table at a signing as if he were my manager? ”
“Yeah, that was funny.” My tone sounded dull even to my own ears.
Seraphina reached across the table to take hold of my wrist while lifting my chin with the other. “You know I love you.”
I nodded, bracing myself for what was coming.
“Isn’t it time you stop punishing yourself for Jon's death?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself but changed my mind. Instead, I admitted the truth, “I don’t know how.”