“He wasn’t interested in anything I did, least of all my painting.” I shrug, leading her away from the stairs and further into the house.
“You said your mother was a painter. Did he disapprove of her art too?”
“No. He adored her and everything about her. I suppose the only thing she did that didn’t earn his approval was me.” When Avery tilts her head in question, I fill in the blanks. “He told me more than once that he never wanted kids. He was thirty-six when he met my mom while delivering some sea bass to a hotel in Miami. They got together and she ended up pregnant soon afterward. If not for that, I don’t think he ever planned to marry, either.”
We end up in the kitchen, even though I have nothing specific to see in the house. I’m shocked to see the small breakfast table. It seemed so much larger when my dad was hunched over it drinking a glass of Jack like it was morning coffee while he paged through the newspaper.
One of those papers is folded neatly on the table, yellowed and curling up at the edges. Next to it is an empty, salt-filmed juice glass. Both items waiting for him to return, as if he has just stepped away for a few minutes not five years.
For some reason I pity the man now that I’m stepping through the remnants of his empty, angry life. I walk over to toss the old paper. When I drop it into the open trash can at the end of the counter, I disturb the mouse and her half a dozen babies who have made their nest behind the bin.
Avery yelps as the rodents scatter around her feet. I can’t hold back my chuckle as she flees the kitchen for the apparent safety of the dining room as if a herd of wild animals were chasing her.
“It’s okay, they’re gone,” I call to her. “You can come back.”
But she doesn’t.
“Avery?” Now I’m the one gripped by sudden, irrational fear. I bolt for the dining room.
And find her standing inside, her gaze riveted to a framed piece hanging on the wall.
“Is this one of your mother’s paintings?”
When I step beside her I feel all of the blood drain out of my head. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“No. It’s not hers. It’s one of mine.”
“One of yours?” She places her hand on my back, gaping as openly as I am. “If this is one of yours, Nick, then does that mean—”
“It’s the only one left.”
My voice is wooden, but I can’t help it. I only had five paintings I was proud enough of to keep when I got out of the hospital and finally left this place for good. I took those five paintings with me to New York. A couple of years later I destroyed them all, consequences of my own pointless anger at Kathryn . . . and myself.
I thought this one had been destroyed too.
Not by me, but by my father the night we fought just a few paces from where I stand with Avery now.
I’m in complete shock to see my painting again. Even more so, to see it hanging in the old man’s house.
I stare at the expressionist painting of a white bird soaring over the surface of crystalline blue water, its feathers just skimming the waves. Above the glorious wings, a brilliant sunset explodes in vibrant shades of gold. I remember working on this piece, my sense of accomplishment in seeing my vision of fire and water and the slim plane of harmony that exists between them take shape on my canvas. I had been ridiculously proud of this one.
Avery rests her head against my shoulder as she studies my work. “You painted him too. Icarus.”
“Yes.” I smile, turning my head to press a kiss to hers. “I can’t believe it’s here. That he kept it. I thought he threw it away after he ruined it that night.”
She looks at me, frowning. “What night?”
“The night we fought over there in the living room.”
“That’s the room? That’s the window that he—”
I nod, my scarred hand clenching at the memory.
“Tell me what happened, Nick.”
I see the night playing out in my mind as I reach up and carefully remove my painting from the wall. I set it down on the dining room table, my breath gusting out of me on a long, heavy sigh.
“I was eighteen and I’d been out drinking with a group of friends at some rich fuck’s house party down by Tavernier. I noticed he had a lot of art on the walls. Some of it was shit, but some of it was good. Really good. We started talking and I told him that I painted too. I told him as soon as I saved up some money I was going to move to Miami and try to make a go of it with my work, and he said he’d like to see what I had. He said to bring my best piece around in the morning and maybe he’d buy it.”