I wonder if I could do justice to them in a drawing, maybe with just a hint of color in them from the sun rays.”
Emma never wanted to paint angel clouds again. Just looking up at them made her skin crawl and her stomach almost rebel at the small protein bar she’d been eating.
“I don’t paint clouds that look like angels’ wings,” she said.
“Why?” He turned his head to look at her. “You know you can talk to me, Em. I’m a dang good listener.”
She thought of all the times that Nancy had tried to get her to open up about her memories and she couldn’t. Maybe she should call Nancy and talk to her on the phone about some of this. Sophie and Josh, along with Filly and Arty, were her friends. She could talk to them, and they would help her, but maybe Nancy could help even more.
“I’d just finished the painting a day or so before and gotten my final grade on it,” she sighed. “Rebel used to tell me and Sophie that we had guardian angels that would wrap their wings around us and protect us. That’s what I thought about when I was working on it. Then no one, not a guardian angel or a real person, was there to protect me when I was raped.” She told him about how she felt at the hospital and how she had sneaked out. “I took a knife from the kitchen and destroyed the painting because my guardian angels had forsaken me.”
Josh reached across the distance separating them and laced his fingers with hers. “I understand, but someday you might be ready to paint angel clouds again.”
“Thank you, but what I really need to do is figure out who I am right now,” she said.
He pulled his hand free. “How long do you think that will take?”
Suddenly she felt pressured to figure things out in a hurry, and yet she needed the time to work through it all. Would Josh be willing to wait, or did he want a relationship now?
“I have no idea. It took my whole life in some ways to get me in the shape I was in before I came to the trailer park, so I expect it will be a slow process. I’m sorry if . . .”
He turned his head and reached for her hand again. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. Take all the time you need.”
“Seems that I’m always saying it, but thank you, Josh.” The antsy feeling of being pressured to rush was gone in the blink of an eye.
“Look at those birds, Em.” Josh turned back so he could see the sky again. “They’re flying close to us, but you could paint them in the middle of that heart-shaped cloud.” He was a little disappointed that she wasn’t as ready as he was to be more than just friends.
What makes you think you’d even know how to have a relationship? Maybe you need to work on your social skills before you think about a girlfriend. You couldn’t even keep it together enough to go to public schools. This time it was his mother talking to him.
Emma broke into his thoughts before he could argue when she asked, “What kind of birds are they?”
“Mexican jays,” he said. “The blue on them is so brilliant that they . . . oh!” He sat up and grabbed his notepad.
“What?” She popped up to a sitting position right beside him just in time to see a lizard crawling onto their quilt. “What is that ugly thing?”
“That would be a Texas toad, or what folks around these parts call a horny toad. I haven’t ever done a drawing of one of those,” he said as the round thing that looked like it popped out of a sci-fi comic book made its way across the quilt.
Emma giggled. “If Sophie was painting that thing, it would be purple.”
“What if I draw it with a cactus off to the side of the canvas and put just a tiny bit of purple in the cactus flower?” Josh finished the rough sketch and laid his notebook back down.
“I can’t wait to see it. I think I’ll do one of it all stylized with purple horns and maybe blue eyes.” She made notes until the reptile scurried away.
“Now the day hasn’t been totally shot.” Josh grinned. “If I get even one idea when I come out here, I feel like it’s profitable.” Mentally, he was making notes about