Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,97

would she do without him? It wasn’t so much that Jesse seemed to know what she needed in the warehouse even before she did—moving the ladder a few feet to the left, or adding a bit of Prussian blue to her palette—but that he was a hungry student and she enjoyed teaching him. He devoured every art book she brought him from the library, giving them back to her when they were due and asking her to check them out again a few days later. She let him read the books in the warehouse, because when he was at home on the farm, he was expected to work—work he loathed.

Peter was no longer helping in the warehouse. Baseball season had begun in the high school, and Anna was surprised to learn that Peter, despite being small and slender, was the star catcher on Edenton High School’s baseball team. That meant he had practice after school every day. Anna missed his industriousness, but she had little work for two boys now that the heavy lifting was over, and to be truthful, Peter was never going to be an artist. He was technically competent and created detailed renderings of car engines and tractors, but he lacked Jesse’s passion and creativity. Anna thought Peter would make a fine engineer someday.

She was rarely alone in the warehouse these days, whether Jesse was there or not. People stopped in during the day to watch her progress. Teenagers came by after school. Housewives running errands stopped in to watch and chat. And the men. The tiresome men. They stopped in during their lunch hours or after work, and they were curious and often critical. The women were kind, accepting of anything Anna chose to do in her painting, but the men all had opinions. They seemed to enjoy telling Anna what she was doing wrong, as if they could possibly know. She ignored them. The movers and shakers—Mayor Sykes, Mr. Fiering, and Billy Calhoun—were still distressed about having the Tea Party front and center, but they complained about it less now, at least to her, so she guessed they’d come to realize it was out of their hands.

Two men had not returned and for that Anna was grateful: Theresa Wayman’s father and Martin Drapple, whom she hadn’t seen since the day he’d slapped his wife. He was wise to stay away. She had no need of him now that the canvas was on the wall, anyhow. Some of the women asked her if she’d paint portraits of their children. She had no time for that, but she was both flattered and taken aback by the requests. Martin was the portrait artist in Edenton. Everyone knew that, and she had no desire to harm his career.

March 8–9, 1940

Anna awakened at three Friday morning, unable to go back to sleep because all she could think about was how much she wanted to go to the warehouse and get back to work. After tossing and turning for half an hour, she finally got out of bed, dressed, tiptoed out of the house, and drove herself to the warehouse in the dark. The dirt road was black and silent, the woods too late for the cicadas, too early for the birds, and she fought her nerves as she drove through the trees. Walking into the suffocating pitch-blackness of the warehouse was even more of a challenge, but once she turned on the lights, her heartbeat began to settle down and the mural came to life in front of her in all its half-painted glory.

She painted until nearly nine A.M. It was as though some force were under her skin that wouldn’t let her stop, and she was filled with the joy of creating. But then, suddenly, all the steam seemed to go out of her body and she was utterly exhausted. What she wouldn’t give for a bed to climb into! She remembered that Jesse was working on the farm this morning, so she had the warehouse to herself. Sitting down next to her worktable, she leaned forward and rested her head on her arms, and before she even had a chance to think, she was asleep.

“Wake up sleepyhead!”

Dazed, Anna lifted her head from her worktable. It took her a moment to get her bearings. She was in the warehouse and Pauline stood in front of her, a garment bag in her arms.

“Oh, my.” Anna rubbed the back of her stiff neck and looked up at Pauline. “I didn’t mean