Laney looks up at my canvas from her chair. “That’s so cute,” she says, and it sounds so fucking honest and innocent I could die from her praise. I eye her canvas back. She doesn’t look older than six or seven, but she’s a much better artist than I am. Her green and brown bumpy toad sits atop a large blooming rose. His pupils are bored slits, his lanky toes disappearbetween the pink petals of the flower, and his tongue stretches across the canvas to catch a fly.
“Thanks, Laney. Yours is really good, too.” She smiles in appreciation, returning to her picture.
I rise from my chair, nervous for some reason about what I’m going to see painted on Chloe’s canvas. She stands in front of her painting with her hands folded over the back of her chair, and I stand behind her, taking in her favorite animal and flower, and how she’s depicted them.
A white swan floats on a layer of turquoise, the shimmer of movement realistically reflected in its surface. The bird has a prominent black bump on her orange bill, her eyes gently closed as her neck bends toward the water where she meets her reflection.
“What are those?” I ask, my fingers reaching out to touch the flimsy, pink and orange petals of the flower crown painted on the swan’s head.
“Peonies. They’re my mother’s favorite.”
My hand falls to my side, any words I had prepared to give her catching in my throat.
None of them do the painting justice.
Beautifulis too bland a word to describe the bird Chloe has painted with such elegance. I can practically feel the emotion flowing off the canvas, feel the stutter of Chloe’s heart as I stand with my chest to her back. I can practically taste the trepidation rippling from her body as she stares silently ahead while I explore every inch of color and detail and depth in front of us.
“Do you like it?” she finally asks, bending her neck to look back at me.
I tear my eyes from the painting to meet hers. Her pupils dilate and her lips part as she waits for my response. For my approval.
“I have no words, Chloe.”
14
Colin
“Wait up, panda bear.”
I hustle ahead of Chloe to my truck, hearing the click of the security gate latch behind us and then her footsteps hitting the asphalt as she catches up to me. I reach for the passenger door and pull it open, turning back to her as I stand next to the door and wait for her to climb in.
She leans in with a smile stuck on her face and props the dried paintings on the bench seat, standing straight again and staring at me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her smile melting away and head tilting as she studies me. Trying to understand how I could possibly not be smiling, too, after an afternoon with the cutest, sweetest kids in Four Peaks County.
Blonde curls fall out of the messy bun she put her hair into after the painting class and before we had lunch with the kids. Most of the mothers had their own class to attend during the lunch hour, so Chloe wrangled all nine kids into the courtyard and set them up with sandwiches and snacks. They all left the courtyard with red juice mustaches, full bellies, and not a fear in the world.
I left lunch with the image of Chloe’s cherry-red lips in my mind and a heavy stone in my gut.
“Nothing.” I nod impatiently toward the vehicle for her to get in. She doesn’t.
She crosses her arms and cocks her hip, narrowing her eyes like she’s using x-ray vision to read my mind. I reach for her arm to tug her into the vehicle, but I stop short, the loud voice in my mind that tells me totouch her, touch her however you want because she’s not human, she’s evil,disturbingly quiet. In its place, an almost imperceptible voice, sayingshe doesn’t deserve to be touched like that,echoes from the pit of my brain like it’s whispering from the depths of a well that’s been dried up for ages.
Her eyes track my halted movement, my hand dropping to my side again as I hold the door open. “Get in the car.”
“No,” she says defiantly. “You didn’t have fun?”
I scoff, my gaze trailing through the blue sky and the white clouds dotting the mountain in the distance. “Get in the car, Chloe.”
She turns away from me and walks determinedly toward the highway, hitting the bike lane and continuing down the road on a mission. I cinch my jaw tight, pushing the door closed and hurrying after her. “Where are you going?” I quicken my pace to keep up with her, but her long legs are moving fast, continuing away from me. Her shoes crunch over the loose gravel with every step, and I glance back as an eighteen-wheeler comes into view in the distance, traveling in our direction.
“Home.”
“I was going to drive you.”
“Don’t bother,” she calls in a huff, the words drowning in the sound of the nearing semi.
I jog ahead and wrap my hand around her arm, pulling her from the shoulder and further off the highway as the truck barrels past us, the air forcing her loose curls into a whirlwind.
