by Carla Damron
“Hastings?” Royce Macy asked, his eyes widening.
“Yes.” Reverend Bill sighed. “He’s come to see where his dad has been interred.”
Royce Macy looked at the tools gathered around his feet. “Maybe I’d better go.”
“That might be best,” Reverend Bill said.
As the man scooped up his tools and rolled up the sheet of paper, Reverend Bill walked over to the curly haired man and guided him over to the tall white column with the angel on top. A brass plate had been added that morning: Mitchell Sims Hastings, Sr. March 1, 1960–November 7, 2014. The men who’d added the plaque had left a mess that Joe had cleaned up.
The dark haired man circled the statue, pausing when he got to Mr. Mitch’s plate, which he touched with a trembling finger. Mr. Mitch’s boy, Joe realized. A few tears trickled down his face. He wiped them with the knuckles of his right hand. Reverend Bill slid an arm around his shoulder and whispered something to him. The young man never spoke, but stood there, as if frozen in his grief. Reverend Bill stood there, too, sharing his pain and offering silent comfort.
Joe knew he shouldn’t be watching. He closed his eyes and thought about Mr. Mitch, wondering why the Lord would take someone who had so many people to miss him.
THE TEXT MESSAGE ON Lena’s phone glowed like a beacon in the dark light of early morning. She pulled herself up, propping a pillow behind her shoulders and rubbing her eyes. Another night with so little sleep, a few snatched hours, filled with unsettling dreams. Her arms and legs ached like she had spent hours in the gym but she’d done nothing physical in days. Just carried around what felt like a boulder—this new life of hers. Widowhood.
The phone trembled on the nightstand, wanting her to click the message and read it. She switched on the lamp and lifted the device.
“Can we meet?” from Royce.
The boulder shifted. What did he want, after all this time?
The phone buzzed again. “I just want fifteen minutes.”
What about what she wanted? The time for him to reach out was long past. Royce had been a mistake. No, that wasn’t quite right. He had been a crucial part of her life two years ago.
They had met when she took his oil and acrylics class at the university, something she’d wanted to try for years but, out of cowardice, never done. Then she’d entered a bleak period in her life when everything grew stale, when her days became long stretches of tedium. The house felt suffocating, her marriage worn out. Every dinner conversation the same: Mitch describing the latest problem with his business, Becca shrugging off their questions, picking at her food, and hurrying from the table as soon as she could. Lena finding herself straining to care, to listen, to not crave something that wasn’t there anymore. When the course catalog from the university arrived in her mail, she snatched it up and registered for the class.
She remembered that feeling—the fear, but also the thrill—of preparing for the class. Shopping for campus clothes. Assembling her supplies: easel, paints, canvases. The morning of her first day, changing clothes six times before settling on jeans and a batik top. Feeling absurdly old compared to other students; the perky coeds with rosy skin and slim little bodies and tattoos—she hadn’t expected so many tattoos.
Royce had come into the room dressed in chinos, his hair a chaos of red curls that needed trimming. He wasn’t tall, but lean and compact, an efficient design in humanhood. He moved manically, rearranging easels to capture the natural light from the tall, rippled glass windows. Handing out supplies. Setting up each student in a work area. He moved Lena’s easel near the front.
After an introduction to the class format and syllabus, he assigned the first project: paint a self-portrait. “Take thirty minutes. This is a time for you to be unleashed, not measured. Measured comes later,” he said, his voice as animated as his movements.
What the hell did that mean? She wanted to do it right, to impress him, but the way he hurried from student to student, tossing out suggestions, hands fluttering like a bird in flight unnerved her. She remembered portraiture from her undergraduate art degree and started by scaling out proportions, top of head to chin, distance between eyes, establishing the planes of the face with pencil marks on the canvas. So obsessed with these details, she couldn’t bring herself to pick up a brush.
“Fifteen more minutes. I don’t care about quality. I want to see style. This is a free-paint exercise,” Royce said. “Don’t over think it. You can’t get this wrong.”
She managed to paint her hair, blond then, down past her shoulders. Her eyes? Boring, but she got the color and shape right. She sketched the chin and nose, darkened under her cheeks where the shadow would fall, but couldn’t begin to get the mouth. A million times she outlined her lips with a liner pencil but she couldn’t put it on the canvas no matter how hard she tried.
Royce approached. She said, “This is awful.”
“I don’t care if it is.” He stepped closer to the canvas. “Is realism the technique you always use? Have you tried doing something abstract?”
“No, I—” She hadn’t been able to finish her sentence. She felt like she was pretending, like all she would ever be able to do is paint fruit in a bowl or Charleston’s Rainbow Row.
When the class ended she asked to take the project home, deciding this had been a huge mistake and she’d never return.
“Let’s try an experiment first.” Royce put a blank canvas on her easel and told her not to plan or sketch, but “turn the brush loose on the canvas.”
It had felt impossible, yet Royce busied himself with his work as though this was a request he made every day. Becca came to her mind; how her daughter would smile to hear that on her very first day, Lena had been kept after class.
She dipped her brush in green and blue, swirling the colors together, and stroked the top of the blank canvas, unwilling to defy his request. A simple curved line was all she managed, but she found she liked the color and shape. Should she try another? She touched a lower section with a broader sweep of brush. It needed more green. This time she pressed the color into the center, swishing right and left. Yes. The texture left by the bristles—yes.
Red. She didn’t know why she needed that color but she did and made a dramatic arc that bisected the white space. More. She shimmied the brush down, red sparking the calmer blue and teal. Yellow now, something quiet, a small, secret space atop the red. Next she mixed the red and blue to form a rich, vibrant amethyst that belonged in the very center. She didn’t know how much time passed as she explored tints and textures and shapes. Paint spattered her skin but she didn’t care, nothing mattered but the painting.
And then she was done. She put down her brush.
It was a mess, but something beautiful was there, in the colors blurring and swirling and bright. Royce approached, giving the canvas a thorough study. He said, “Maybe realism isn’t your forte?”
After class time with Royce became a regular event, then extended studio hours. “You have talent, Lena. Just don’t let yourself get in the way,” he said, the rise and fall of his voice as smooth as water in a stream. One afternoon, after three hours of painting, he suggested a visit to a coffee shop. Over caramel lattes she learned he was divorced, had no children, and was preparing for a gallery show in Charlotte. Coffee became a regular after-studio event, something she enjoyed with an urgency that frightened her. Then came their first dinner at a small restaurant that looked over the river, drinking cabernet by a fireplace as they argued the merits of Paul Klee. She didn’t get home until midnight, Mitch rolling over in bed to ask, “Are you okay?” but she didn’t feel guilty, just annoyed that she’d had to come home at all. She loved the person she had become when she was with Royce. Someone creative and interesting and passionate.
The phone vibrated again. “Please?” his message read.
Best to put this to rest as soon as possible, she decided. “I’ll be at Starbucks at 7.”
Dressing proved an interesting endeavor. She wanted something
plain, but not black. She refused to be morbid in her widowhood. Jeans and a yellow sweater were her first choice, but she spotted drops of purple paint on the sleeve, and remembered it had been what she wore the day of Mitch’s accident. She sat on her bed and fingered the tiny spots and remembered holding Mitch’s hand without feeling him there. How that detail had cut through her denial. How she had begged for him to stay, but he was already gone.
She folded the sweater and placed it at the top of her closet. She’d never wear it again but wasn’t quite ready to give it away. Maybe she never would be.
After donning a brown top, she ran a comb through her hair and opted not to bother with makeup. She didn’t want to look good for Royce.
The parking lot in front of the coffee shop held few cars. She didn’t spot his van. As she climbed out of her car, she tugged the scarf up to her ears, surprised by the cold, damp air, like the morning was swollen and ready to burst. A scattering of customers occupied café tables by the window, each huddled over cell phones or laptops. Lena ordered a skinny latte by rote, then changed it to regular. She needed calories for this conversation.
When Royce entered, he headed straight to her table, unwinding the wool coat from around his shoulders and draping it on the chair. “Am I late?”
“No, I was early.”
He wore a teal scarf which made his green eyes more piercing. A few strands of silver streaked his red hair, which had grown long enough for the curls to reach his shoulders. More lines etched his forehead than before, but the changes in Royce were nothing compared to hers.
“I’ll grab a coffee and be right back. Need anything? Muffin? They have those scones you like.”
She shook her head. How did he have any notion of what she liked? It had been almost two years since they’d spent time together. Spent all their time together.
He ordered in that animated way he had, gesturing at the sign and at the muffins in the case, smiling at the multi-pierced coed who took his order. He returned with two pastries that he placed between them. “In case you change your mind.”
This was something Mitch might have done, and the too familiar ache bloomed inside once again.
When he sat down, he leaned forward, elbows on the tiny table, and she smelled the musky scent of his aftershave. “How are you doing?”
Had he any clue how loaded that question was for her? She sipped and thought about how to respond. An abrupt “fine,” might derail his line of questioning, but would be dishonest. Not that he deserved honesty from her. “I’m doing my best,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for something like this to happen.”
“How could you be?” He tossed out a hand, then lowered it to the table. “Is there anything you need?”
“From you? No.”
He watched her, eyelids narrowing to half-mast. “No, I suppose not.” He broke off a piece of scone, studied it, and dropped it back on his plate.
She looked into her coffee, wondering why she had come. She needed to go home. Her children would be awake soon, though Abby would sleep till noon. She was still catching up from the long, difficult journey back to South Carolina
“How was the funeral?” he asked.
“Fine. Difficult.” She wasn’t sure how much to disclose. Two years ago, she’d have bared her soul to him. “I’m worried about Becca and the boys. Mitch is—was—” still, so hard to use the past tense—“a wonderful father.”
He cocked his head at her, then said, “I talked with Becca outside the church. I can see why you’re concerned.”
What did that mean? How dare he comment on her child? She gripped the cup.
“She looks more and more like you. The shape of her eyes. That long, elegant neck.” He lifted a finger, gesturing at her throat.
“Becca has a lot more of Mitch in her,” she replied, glancing at her watch. “What did you want, Royce? Why did you call?”
“I had to see you. Don’t know how else to say it. After all you’ve been through. After everything—I had to know you were okay.” The slightest quiver to his lips was something new.
“Strange that you feel that now. Not when I had cancer. Not when I almost died.” She watched as the words hit their mark.
His flinch was hardly perceptible. They had always been gentle together. Loving. Supporting. But he had been neither when she needed it the most.
“I suppose I deserved that,” he whispered. “I could tell you I’m sorry. God knows, I am. But I suspect it’s too late for that.”
She let silence voice her agreement.
“I couldn’t handle it. I’ve never gotten involved with a student before. Hell, it had been years since I’d been connected with anyone like I was with you.”
She thought about that, about how an invisible tether had attached each to the other. How those early days together felt, the hunger they had for each other. How it stung when he abandoned her.
He spun his cup on the table. “And then came the lump. Everything had been so perfect. What I felt for you—”
She started to ask what he had felt, and how he could abandon her when she needed him most, but she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.
“I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t fix it. So I panicked. I’m not proud of it.”
“I suppose not.” She studied his face over the rim of her latte. He’d lost his swagger, his confidence, but there was a softness behind his eyes she’d missed.
“Are you painting?” he asked.
The question surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. Conversation with Royce always circled back to art.
“No. I thought I was ready but . . . it didn’t happen.”
He let out a loud sigh. “Remember that first project you did in my class? You let so much out that day. You need to paint. It’s how you express yourself best. Words have never been your thing, Lena.”
It annoyed her that he thought he could diagnose her over latte and uneaten pastries. But maybe he was right, words weren’t her “thing.” They had been Mitch’s though. He could communicate with anyone. It made him a great realtor. He was the one who talked with the kids, explained to them about sex and love, who comforted them when they were hurt or sad. He and Becca had that powerful tie, and now their daughter was left alone with Lena. Lena, who wasn’t good with words.
He pushed the plate across the table. “Eat.”
She lifted a scone and nibbled on a corner. Just the right amount of sweetness, so she took a larger bite. She’d eaten so little over the past week, she wondered how her stomach would handle it, but couldn’t stop herself from finishing the pastry.
Royce smiled. “At least I got that right.”
She wiped crumbs from her lips and placed the napkin by her cup. What now? She’d heard him apologize, and it changed nothing. Life had taken her down a different path from Royce. Sitting with him here, now, sipping coffee like they used to, felt odd. Out of sync. Wrong. Maybe she didn’t hate him, but she didn’t want to be here with him.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Curious that he could sense the change in her. “I need to get home.”
“Of course.” He stood, collecting their cups and the plate and hurrying them to the trash. As she put on her jacket he rushed back to hold it for her, the way he used to do, the way Mitch always did, and she thought about how from now on, she’d be donning jackets on her own. Royce walked her to the door but hesitated before opening it.
“I want to see you again,” he said, his gaze open, expectant. “I know now is not the right time. I can be patient.”
Lena looped the scarf around her neck and breathed in the cold, moist air. “I don’t think . . .” she let her words trail behind her as she walked to her car.
TONYA WRESTLED BYRON FROM the car seat, which was no easy feat because John had parked too close to the curb. Byron’s sweatshirt had bunched up under his arms and there was a new purple stain on the sleeve, grape juice from snacks at daycare. His head bumped against her chin when she s
hut the door.
“Ow.”
“Ow,” he repeated with a giggle. “Ow, ow.”
John checked a slip of paper he’d clipped to a manila folder. “This is the building,” he said.
The squat faux-stucco building had a brick walkway like an umbilicus attaching it to the street. A tall fountain gurgled in the tiny yard, water bubbling out of an abstract copper hammer and frothing in a milky pool below. When John had said he’d been talking to an attorney, he hadn’t mentioned “Will Hammer and Associates.” The Will Hammer TV commercials that played over and over were cheesy and amateurish, always ending with a giant hammer slammed on a judge’s desk: “Let Will Hammer hammer out justice for you!”
She still wasn’t sure she should pursue this, but Marion had harped about it all during their coffee break. “Damn right, you should talk to a lawyer,” she had said. “Somebody has to look out for your interest. And that somebody ain’t your husband.” Tonya wanted to argue, to say she and John were together in this, but lately there hadn’t been much togetherness between them.
Byron squirmed to be put down. She obliged, grabbing his hand before he launched himself into the water. “Me splash!!” he squealed, trying to pull away from her. Me-Splash could be Byron’s middle name; the child had come out of her womb with a love for water. She remembered those earliest baths, how his chubby hands splatted the water, how he blinked with happy surprise. How he became a wet little eel when she lifted him from the plastic tub, and she’d been so scared she’d drop him, John waiting with a towel to snuggle him close. Those early, perfect days.
“No splash. It’s cold out.” John took his groping hand and said, “This shouldn’t take long.”
Inside the building, a receptionist sat behind an arc of black granite that held a paper thin computer monitor, a phone, and a message pad. The phone rang constantly, but the woman never lost her poise: “Will Hammer and Associates. How can I help you?” Tonya tried to imagine Marion working somewhere like this. After the third call, she’d put everyone on hold and start filing her nails.