I looked at the card.
The original start date had passed months ago. Beneath it was a new one, carefully written by the instructor.
“You kept it?”
“I kept asking them to move it.”
My eyes filled before I understood why.
While I had been upstairs reclaiming a bedroom, someone had already been saving me a place outside that house.
Lila reached across the table.
“You used to paint every Sunday.”
“I was never especially good.”
“You were happy.”
I laughed through a breath that shook.
All those months, I had thought brunch was merely the small thing Brooke demanded I surrender.
It had been a doorway.
Lila had held it open.
I attended the first class on a rainy Thursday. Nobody there knew about the bank, the briefcase, or the laundry.
The instructor asked what I wanted to paint.
I chose a window with light coming through it.
By winter, the picture hung in my kitchen. The perspective was imperfect, and one curtain looked heavier than the other.
I loved it.
Brandon came for dinner the evening I put it up. He stood in front of it for a long time.
“I remember your paints,” he said. “From when I was little.”
“So do I.”
He looked at me, then back at the picture.
“I’m glad they’re out again.”
After dinner, he rose to clear the table.
I almost followed him out of habit.
Then I sat back down.
Water ran in the sink. Outside, the maple branches moved against the darkening sky, and the porch light illuminated the path I had chosen for myself.
Brandon finished the dishes, dried his hands, and asked whether I wanted tea.
“Yes,” I said.
I stayed in my chair while my son put the kettle on.
