Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [32]
“Fourth. A stretch, but…Grace McKiver.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
She pitched the remains of her Snickers in the river. “Probably, along with most everything else. Now, Grace might seem cold at first, but once you get to know her she’s sincere, loyal to a fault and, thanks to a very good plastic surgeon, a goddess with her clothes off.”
I watched the Snickers float like a short turd in the water. “That answers a lot.”
“Lastly, Jeanne Alexander.”
“I’m not listening.”
“She’s is probably the most like me, so you’d have to unlearn very few of your bad habits.”
“What bad habits?”
“Well, since you brought it up.”
“I didn’t. You did.”
“You leave your underwear on the bathroom floor. Toilet seat too often up. You squeeze the toothpaste in the middle. Never make the bed. Hate yard work. Haven’t cleaned your studio in ten years.”
“That’s ’cause I haven’t been in there in nearly three.”
She stopped and tilted her head, a practiced move. “Which brings me to my point.”
“This is your father coming out in you.”
“You should marry. I mean, not right away. Play the mourning widower and give it a year. Maybe eighteen months. Besides, it’ll get them competing.”
“Abigail.”
She didn’t look at me, but stared off into the trees. “You should. I hate the thought of you living alone.” She licked the chocolate off her front teeth. “But more than that. You must promise me that you will sit at your easel—”
“Abbie.”
“I’m serious. Promise.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
She tapped me in the chest. “I know you. You can’t keep it all bottled up in there. Sooner or later, you’ll have to let it out.”
“You sound like Mom.”
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
I packed up the canoe and then scooped my arms beneath her, lifting her. She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Promise?”
I looked her in the eyes, fingers crossed. “I promise.”
“Uncross those fingers and say it.”
“I promise…I will always remember the way you burnt your first pot roast to a crisp.”
“Are you finished?”
“Okay…I promise I’ll always wish I could make the art you’ve always thought that I could.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
I looped the harness around me and began my snow-dog pull. She lay in the boat, staring at me. “You can, you know. It’s in you.”
“Can what? What’s in me?”
She pointed her 800 mcg lollipop at me. “Don’t start that crap with me.”
I didn’t have to turn around to see her windshield-wiper finger cutting the air. “Honey…” I stopped pulling, letting the lines fall slack. “Face the music. I fish better than I paint. I even helped your dad catch fish and he sucks. But in terms of art, other than a portrait here and there—which I’ll admit, I do seem to have some talent for—I’m a hack for hire. Just look at our house. Garage to attic, it’s full of stuff we can’t sell.”
“You’re not a reject to me.”
“Well, you’d be alone on that one.”
The Actiq often did this. Made her chatty and defiant. Not that she needed help on the defiance part.
“Band-Aid.”
A deep breath. Her adopted nickname for me. “Yes.”
“Come here.”
I untangled myself and sloshed backward, kneeling beside the gunnel. She rested her head on her palm. “I’ve seen art in Rome, London, New York…even Asia.” She touched my nose. “No one moves me the way you do.”
Despite my dashed hopes and her continued embarrassment, that right there is the singular reason I’ve not burned everything I’ve ever painted and continued to keep my studio. Because she believed long after I’d quit.
“I love you Abigail Coleman Michaels.”
“Good. Glad we settled that. Now, mush! It’s hot in here with no breeze.” I turned, lifted the straps across my shoulders and began pulling. As the tension pulled back, she said, “You know you might also consider Wendy Maxwell, her family’s got that place—”
“Would you shut up and go to sleep?”
She paused and her tone changed. “Not until you set my feet on Cedar Point.”
Her voice echoed with a sense of finality. I leaned into the harness, dug my feet into the sand, and the ropes cut into my shoulders.
9
The driver of the car was wearing a black hat and white