by Bella Andre
They crested the hill, and a gorgeous classical structure appeared. “The Legion of Honor. It’s a museum,” Jorge explained, “with all these really cool paintings. Mom and I come here all the time, just like she used to come here with her parents. And we go to the de Young Museum too.”
“Why don’t you tell Noah and Gideon about the special activity we do at the museum?” Rosie suggested.
“We paint!” So excited, he sat on the edge of his seat, straining against his seat belt. “There’s this one room where they let us set up easels and copy the paintings. Then Mom and I compare our pictures. It’s so much fun,” he told Noah and Gideon. “You’re going to love it just like we do!”
“Are you really allowed to copy famous paintings?” Noah asked.
“Yeah. But it’s not like stealing or anything. It’s just to mess around and pretend to be a famous painter. Although Mommy doesn’t need to pretend, because her paintings are so awesome that she really could be famous if she wanted to.”
As Gideon parked in the last vacant spot in the roundabout, he finally spoke. “I didn’t know you liked to paint.”
“It’s just a hobby.” Once, long ago, she’d dreamed of her paintings hanging in galleries. Back when painting was all she thought about, all she yearned to do. Until she got pregnant, and everything changed. Still, Jorge’s faith in her artistic ability was touching.
“While I was doing my accounting courses in college—” Accounting was what paid the bills. “—I also took as many painting technique and art history classes as I could squeeze into my schedule.” She was ecstatic that Jorge loved art as much as she did. “Jorge’s drawings are amazing. Next time you’re over at the cottage, I’ll show them to you.” She would have done so today, but she hadn’t wanted to accidentally give away their secret destination or the fact that she planned for them all to paint today.
“Are me and Gideon just going to watch you guys paint?” Noah asked, his mouth drooping, clearly not liking that idea.
“No way,” she told Noah. “We’re all going to.” She smiled at Gideon, trying not to betray her nerves about his reaction. There was more than a fifty-fifty chance he’d totally regret agreeing to their playdate, especially when she added, “Even you, Gideon.”
As expected, he looked more than a little shell-shocked. Despite her jangling nerves, she acted cool and calm as she climbed out of the SUV and opened the back. Gideon’s needle was definitely leaning toward regret.
“Our easels. Yay!” Jorge jumped in the air, and Noah naturally jumped with him. They were true pals; whatever excited one excited the other.
Only Gideon remained silent as he helped her pull out the sketch pads and easels, which folded down to the size of backpacks.
Once they’d gathered up everything, including paint palettes and brushes, they crossed the road and climbed the long, wide path through the central columns and on to Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker. Rosie took a dozen pictures of the boys mimicking the pose and then in front of the mini Louvre pyramid in the middle of the courtyard. Throughout, Gideon hung back a couple of feet, his needle edging ever higher in the regret direction.
As they walked through the ticket booth, her favorite docent waved. “Hey, Cherise,” Rosie called.
“Good to see you, honey.” Cherise was in her sixties and had been a museum docent back when Rosie used to come here with her parents. “You’ve got friends.” She ran her eyes up and down Gideon’s impressive frame, not in the least abashed to show how much she appreciated his form. “How lovely. You know how much our patrons love to see artists at work.”
After they’d passed, Gideon finally spoke again. “People are going to see our paintings?” His voice might actually be tinged with terror.
Before Rosie could respond, Jorge said, “I like it when people look at our paintings. They always say nice things about them, about how talented me and Mom are. I’ll bet you guys get lots of compliments too.”
Gideon didn’t look convinced, even by Jorge’s enthusiastic response. Rosie could have smoothed things over by telling him the playdate was just for the boys, that all he had to do was dab his paintbrush on the paper and pretend. But she’d already decided not to pussyfoot around him anymore—even if he clearly wasn’t at all thrilled about painting. Plus, a part of her still hoped that he might let himself get into it, rather than holding back like he usually did.
Crazier things had happened.
As she led them back to the last room that housed the Impressionists, with every painting they passed, she felt as though she’d come home to good friends. “I love The Russian Bride’s Attire. And the Renoir and Anthony van Dyck too. These paintings, they feel so…” She breathed deeply, as if she could drag in their essence from the air in the room. “So wondrous. Even after all the times I’ve been here, I still can hardly believe this museum has Van Gogh and Manet and Monet and Salvador Dali and Degas. That I don’t need to travel to France or Spain to see them.” She turned to Gideon. “Do you know Van Gogh destroyed most of his initial paintings because he thought they weren’t good enough?” She shook her head. “Just imagine if those paintings were still around. Not for how much they’d be worth, but for how beautiful they’d surely be.”
Jorge pulled on the hem of her shirt. “I want to do the Salvador Dali, Mom.”
“The Dali sounds great, honey.” She turned to Gideon. “What do you think about doing Monet’s Water Lilies with Noah? They’re one of my favorites—almost everyone’s, really.”
“Monet was my mom’s favorite painter,” Gideon said. “She had a book about Water Lilies when I was growing up.”
It was Rosie’s turn to be stunned. After getting his back up over painting in public, the last thing she expected was for him to open up to her in any way.
Finally, she found her voice. “There’s a reason his paintings of the lilies in his backyard in France are popular around the world—they’re undeniably beautiful, in all seasons.” When he didn’t say anything more about his mother, she offered, “I’ll help you two set up.”
Though he thanked her, she knew that painting in a gallery was the last thing he would choose to do with his free time. If not for the boys, she suspected he would have sprinted out of the museum and back to the SUV.
After she set up Noah’s and Gideon’s easels, along with sketch pads and palettes, she got Jorge going. Her son liked to work in colored pencil, sometimes charcoal. He often started out at the easel, then moved to a bench and worked with his sketch pad on his lap.
She positioned her easel so she could see Noah and Gideon without being obvious that she was watching them.
Jorge raced over to whisper in Noah’s ear as his friend made great swipes of color across his pad.
When Jorge ran back, she reminded him, “Walk, sweetheart. Be respectful.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
But his excitement was catching. She wanted to race to Gideon, whisper in his ear as he picked up his brush, looked at the paper, then at the paints. He stood unmoving for so long, she thought he wouldn’t do it, after all. That he might just walk away.
Until, suddenly, he grabbed a brush and began splashing color on the pad.
The museum was surprisingly empty for a Sunday, though that could have been due to the gorgeous day outside. Patrons occasionally stopped to watch them paint for a few seconds before walking on. But the person getting the most attention was Gideon. And Rosie knew exactly why.
Though he clearly had no artistic training, from the first brush of paint across the paper, both Gideon and his painting seemed to vibrate with energy.
At first, he used the same colors as the Water Lilies—blues and greens, dabs of purple, a little red. But as he continued to paint, the colors grew darker, covering the brighter tones he’d started with, until it bore no resemblance at all to the original Monet.
Yet, in every drop of paint, there was something so visceral, so gut-wrenching, as if the very flowers he was trying to paint were dyin
g right before him. He swirled pain and grief and anger and regret across the paper, his hand flashing, slashing, dashing, the colors mixing, bleeding, running.
He moved as though he was in a trance, as though everything was coming out of him without conscious effort. He anointed the painting with pure, raw emotion.
And what he created was amazing.
* * *
Slashes of color flew across Gideon’s vision, flaming reds and burning oranges and intense yellows over dark, bruised blues and guilt-ridden browns and howling blacks. And rising up out of the swirl of color were the faces of Hank Garrett… Jonny Danzi… Ralph Esterhausen… Ralph’s wife and kids… And Karmen. Loyal, dedicated Karmen, who never should have been there in the first place.
Gideon’s team.
Gideon’s responsibility.
Gideon’s failure.
“Uncle Gideon.” Noah grabbed his free hand. “Come and look at what I made!”
Gideon blinked. Once, then again. Until the faces, the fire, were gone, leaving nothing more than blobs of paint—red and orange and yellow streaks across a background of blue and brown and black.
Yet he still felt the horror. And he could still hear the screaming.
“Uncle Gideon!” Noah yanked harder on his hand.
The insistence in his nephew’s voice helped him pull his broken strings back together, at least long enough to focus on what Noah was saying. “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”
“Come see my painting. You’re really going to like it.” Paint streaked Noah’s face, his hands, his clothes. “Your painting is super cool too!” he said, a huge smile on his face.
Gideon moved, his limbs rubbery and jerky, as though they had to learn how to work again. Slowly, he came back to the here and now—to the well-lit museum, to the cool, smooth floor beneath his feet, to the cream-colored walls filled with masterworks. And especially to Noah waiting expectantly for a response to his painting.
“Way cool, kiddo.” Though his nephew’s work was really good, clearly depicting lilies floating in the water, Gideon’s voice was barely more than a rasp, harsh in his throat. He put his hand on Noah’s shoulder, squeezing it. “You’re doing a great job, just like I knew you would. Do you want to paint something else?” Though he’d spent much of the past ten years mostly silent, usually speaking only when spoken to, today he needed to keep talking to drown out the explosions in his head. “We could do that Van Gogh or the Manet if you want.”
Noah shook his head. “Nah, I’m going to help Jorge with his instead. See ya!”
His nephew raced off, leaving Gideon alone with Rosie. And with the horror that he’d painted. The atrocity, the blood and guts and guilt and fear and pain he’d spilled all over the page.
She stood in front of his easel, studying his painting with intense focus. “It’s amazing, Gideon.”
That’s when he knew—she saw it all. Everything he worked so hard to keep hidden inside. All the things he’d never shown to anyone else, not even Ari.
Only Rosie had ever been able to clearly see the hell he’d returned from. Only Rosie had ever truly seen the darkness that festered inside him. The darkness that would always be there, made up of guilt and regret and sorrow and a desperate wish to rewind the calendar to get everything right this time. A desperate wish that could never come true.
Rosie called his painting amazing, but she was only being kind. Because that’s who Rosie was, one of the kindest, sweetest women he’d ever known.
He didn’t deserve her kindness. Not after all the pain he’d caused so many people.
Ashamed by all he’d let go on the easel—the depth of the darkness inside that was now splattered in thick paint on paper stunned even him—he reached around her and tore off the sheet. He wanted to rip it into a million little pieces. Before the boys could gaze at it too long and know true terror. Before Rosie took a closer look and saw how truly dark Gideon’s memories were.
But Rosie stopped him. “No.” She put her hands over his. “I never let Jorge rip up his paintings. I’ve told him a dozen times that everything he creates is good, whether it’s technically perfect or not, whether it’s simple or complicated, whether it stays on the surface or goes deep. Especially then. So that’s what I’m saying to you now, Gideon. What you’ve created is good. I won’t let you destroy it.”
Years of raising a strong-willed little boy gave her a grip firm enough to take the painting from him before he could stop her. Though it was still wet, she rolled it up and slid it into one of the cardboard tubes they’d brought with them.
His insides screamed to get it back. But he didn’t move.
Jorge ran up to them. “Mom, I’m starved.”
As though she hadn’t needed to damn near tear the painting from Gideon’s hands a moment before, she smiled at her son and said, “Me too. Let’s pack up now and have our picnic on the lawn out front.”
Chapter Eleven
Noah and Jorge chattered while they ate their empanadas out on the lawn. They threw the stale bread Rosie had packed for the birds, then ran around like pirates on the burning deck of a ship.
But Gideon didn’t engage. He didn’t look at her, didn’t even look at the kids. His eyes were dark, still full of the pain she’d seen in his painting. So much for her hope that he’d feel better after spending time with paints and brushes…
Maybe she shouldn’t have studied his painting so closely. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him how amazing she thought it was. Maybe she should simply have helped the boys gather up their stuff and pretended she hadn’t seen everything Gideon obviously didn’t want anyone to know. Heck, maybe she should never have taken the risk of bringing them to paint in the museum. They could have jumped on trampolines instead, never needing to say a word to each other, never needing to examine their feelings, never going deep on any level.
But Rosie didn’t believe in holding back her feelings. Even if she did, she couldn’t possibly have held back her visceral reaction to his revealing painting—and the deep emotions roiling within its dark, wild colors.
For a few incredible minutes, he’d let it all out. And though he obviously regretted it, something told her just how important that release had been. It was one of the many reasons why she found art so magical. Even when someone tried to close themselves off, art had a way of pushing past boundaries…and of giving hope. Even when all hope seemed lost.
She hadn’t let him destroy the painting. If only it was as easy to stop him from destroying himself.
Still, she had to give him some space now. Anyone who had painted something so powerful needed time for recovery and reflection.
While Jorge and Noah chowed down on the empanadas, then played on the grass, Rosie and Gideon ate their lunches in silence. When they were done, Gideon collected the picnic remains and carried them over to the trash.
“Mom, can we go back to look at the paintings before going home?” Jorge asked. “I want to show Noah the one where they’re all looking at the monk, except the lady who’s looking straight out of the painting and right into you.”
It was one of her favorite paintings too. “It’s called Holy Day in Monterrey, 1759 by Miguel Fernando Correa. And yes, we can go back inside for a bit.” She glanced at a stone-faced Gideon. “Unless Gideon and Noah need to head home now?”
“Uncle Gideon, please say we can stay longer,” Noah urged.
Once Gideon nodded, Jorge turned to Noah. “The painting I want to show you is like the Mona Lisa’s eyes following you.”
“Who’s the Mona Lisa?” Noah asked.
Jorge told him about the painting in the Louvre and the glass pyramid that was like the pyramid in the Legion of Honor’s courtyard, but way bigger.
“Someday Mom’s gonna take me there,” he boasted.
And she swore she would. Someday soon.
“I want to go too,” Noah exclaimed as they raced back up the concrete walkway to the courtyard.
They followed the boys back into the museum, and sh
e explained everything she knew about the paintings, relishing their interest even if Gideon was in shutdown mode.
As Jorge ran back, pointing to a new painting that hadn’t been there the last time they’d visited, she decided to have a normal conversation with Gideon, even if it was only one-sided. “They’re little sponges, soaking it all up. Jorge is getting better at remembering the names of artists and paintings too.”
“I saw his drawing. It was very good.”
She almost tripped, the sound of his voice shocking in its unexpectedness. It was a little rough, as though he hadn’t used it for a while. Which, to be fair, he hadn’t.
“Yes,” she said, trying to appear as if nothing special had happened. She was almost afraid to say more, in case it set him off like the painting had. But now that he’d had some time to process what he’d painted, she didn’t want to start walking on eggshells with him all over again. Not when it seemed that doing exactly the opposite might be a far better way to reach him. “I’d like to get him art lessons.” She was saving. Rosie was always saving. Her accounting job was good, but with a cottage in Willow Glen and a little boy who grew like a weed, the money leaked out as though it were sitting in a colander instead of a bank.
“Art lessons would be good,” he agreed as he watched the boys crowd up to the new painting. “What is it they’re looking at?”
“I’m not sure. The Legion of Honor rotates its collection regularly, especially if any restoration work needs to be done. Sometimes, the paintings are sent out for other exhibitions, like Water Lilies, which was included in a Paris show. Plus, they switch artwork back and forth with the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. They also store a bunch of stuff down in the basement. Once—” In her excitement, she reached out to put her hand on his arm. “Cherise took us down there. If you think it’s fabulous up here, the basement is a treasure trove. Everything’s packed up to keep it from deteriorating, but still, to be in the presence of all that magnificence…”
Suddenly, she realized she was touching him. But though it was likely the last thing she should have done when he was only just starting to thaw again, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.