thinking about doing the wrong thing. “The wall is worth doing well, even if I have to find someone else to do it.”
“Someone else who understands your vision?”
That’s the part that kept me from e-mailing Professor Basu back to ask for this guy’s contact information. There’s skill and there’s passion. Both are required to do this wall. I don’t have much skill in this medium, despite having graduated in studio art, but I don’t trust anyone else to have the passion. The wall speaks to me, and with my clumsy hands I’m speaking back.
Mom stands up and then slides back to the bed. I catch her under her elbows, pulling her to standing. “Are you okay?” I breathe even though the answer is clearly no.
She’s not okay. She’s dying. That’s what this house is—a personal hospice.
A place to say goodbye.
Her slender hand cups my cheek. “You’re so strong,” she whispers.
“I’m not,” I whisper back because even now I want to fight her. I want to beg her to do some kind of therapy, even though I know we passed the point of no return. There’s only death now, and waiting for it is killing me.
I know something is different as I hopscotch over rubble.
A sharp mechanical sound cuts through the hum of male voices. The heavy plastic sheeting that protects the library from the elements is my very own looking glass. As I step through it, I find a whole bevy of strange creatures, muscled men with tools and boots, as if they stepped from the wall and became flesh.
They spare me a few glances, a little curious, mostly wary, before going about their work. It’s almost noon, and though I only got up and showered an hour ago, the sheen of sweat on their brows tells me they’ve been at this a long time. They have hard hats on their heads and smudges on their dark shirts.
“Harper.” The low voice makes me jolt.
I turn to face Sutton, who looks more like the old version of himself, the one I first met, wearing black slacks and a white button-down, the sleeves rolled up to reveal golden hair on his forearms. He isn’t covered in smudges or sweat, but he does have a yellow hard hat on, burnished curls peeking out from beneath it.
My heart thumps a warm welcome for those forearms. “What are you doing here?”
“Restoring the library.” He raises an eyebrow. “Like you asked me to.”
“Well yeah, but I thought you couldn’t find a construction crew willing to work on the library. And these people seem like they know what they’re doing. Not like you found them on Craigslist.”
“Thanks,” he says drily. “They do know what they’re doing, and I didn’t find them on Craigslist. You don’t need to worry about the library. How’s your mother feeling?”
Guilt clenches my insides, along with worry and fear and a terrible grief that she’s slipping through my fingers. I can’t catch her. It’s like reaching for smoke. “She’s doing okay. How do you know she’s in town?”
He lifts his shoulder in a vague shrug, which I assume means I wouldn’t like his methods. A worker appears at his side to show him a paper. He scans it quickly, his blue eyes sharp, before nodding. The man hurries away to the next room where the books are kept.
“So what did you have to offer them?” I ask.
He steers me by my elbow away from the workers, his touch a delicate burn. “It occurred to me how strange it was for no one to take the job. Tanglewood isn’t exactly in a construction boom right now, which is partly why we wanted to revitalize the west side.”
“Christopher,” I say grimly.
Blue eyes turn speculative. “How did you know that?”
I don’t really want to tell him that Christopher was here last night—or that I was here, alone. “An educated guess. He’s always been the meddling type.”
“Meddling. That’s one word for it. He hinted that they would get a big contract with his high-rise condos if they refused a renovation. It was rebuild or nothing, he told them.”
“That bastard,” I say faintly, hurt anew to hear it spelled out.
“Unfortunately he hinted that to every construction company. Once I convinced them of that, I had three bids on the table and more on the way if I waited for them to get their shit together.”
“And you picked the lowest one?”
“Nope, I didn’t go with any of those bids. Instead I brought in a company from Louisiana. Cost a