into the dim entryway that leads up to my second-floor apartment and guide Indigo onto the narrow stairs in front of me. Our fingers stay linked, which makes navigating the steps slower than it might have been, and sweeter.
She stops in front of my door and takes a deep breath.
The small, angry boy smiles. He likes her. She’s brave.
The man he grew into tries not to squeeze her fingers too tightly.
She opens the door, her eyes scanning the small dining area that’s mostly been turned into temporary storage for the boxes I haven’t unpacked. “That’s mostly extra art supplies and some books. I work out front where the light is good.”
She takes another deep breath. “I know. We could see you painting when we had pizza in the middle of Blue’s living-room floor last night. She’s pleased that you’re using the stepstool she made for you.”
It’s a fantastic stepstool—and the floor is about all that’s left of Blue’s apartment. Even Mabel, who’s seen a lot of bar fights in her time, was impressed at the swath of destruction the three of them left in their wake.
I stop just before the wide arch that leads into my front room and its gloriously gloomy early-spring light.
Indigo keeps moving. “I want to see.”
My sneakers slosh as they hurry to catch up. “The one on the easel is the second painting. The abstract one. I can get the other one if you’d rather. I don’t usually do portraits, but it’s quite good.”
I shake my head. I’m babbling, and I sound like Roger when he gets tipsy. Two things I never, ever do.
Indigo stops dead in her tracks.
I step gingerly to her side so that I don’t mow her down and try to see my work through her eyes. The heart of the painting is a cloud of purple swallows circling in an oyster-shell sky. They trail hints of fire in their wake as they salute the dying light and prepare their swirling return to the small chimney below, old and crumbling and steeped in home.
Or at least that’s what I imagine it to be, this creation of color and light. She might see it differently. I’ve had paintings far less abstract than this one described as pretty blobs of color by critics who should know better.
Her breath stutters on the way in. Smoothes some on the way back out.
I’ve watched hundreds of people meet my work. Thousands.
The small, angry boy covers his eyes.
She lifts our joined hands and sets them gently over her heart. Breathes in and out again.
If I were Roger, I would have a strategically placed bench ready and a nice cup of tea. As it is, I can only wait, anointing my old, scratched floors with the dripping remnants of a dance that I didn’t know I needed until it began.
Indigo swallows. Clears her throat. Swallows again, her fingers squeezing mine convulsively. “You see me so clearly.”
It’s a spare and beautiful compliment—but the words are hurting her. The small, angry boy balls up his fists. “What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes turn to mine, tears spilling out of them to join the last of the damp rain on her cheeks. “I feel so blind. I’m trying to see you, but I can’t.” A shuddering breath as her gaze goes back to the purple swallows and their homebound fire. “Not like this. I need time. Please. I want to see you like this.”
My hands stroke her arms, desperate to tell her that she’s looking right at me and I think she’s seeing me just fine because she somehow knew I needed to feel her head against my heart as our feet sloshed through a puddle on a street that just might be leading me home.
But those aren’t the right words. The small, angry boy learned from the hot messes of his youth. Prepare the canvas first. I lean my forehead against hers. “Come to Vancouver with me this weekend?”
She blinks, her eyelashes so very close to mine. “What?”
The small boy vibrates. Find better words. The right words.
The man that boy has become takes a breath and checks in with his gut, because the first touches of brush to canvas can be fixed, but they can never be entirely erased. “There’s a small pop-up art show this weekend that my agent thought I might like. Emerging artists, the kind who never went to art school. Come with me?”
She turns her head, her eyes traveling to my painting again as her fingers knead