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Ethan is seated upon a stool. He faces the valley. He is painting upon a canvas set upon an easel. He looks up and gives me a smile every bit as breathtaking as the scenery.
“Good morning.”
My heart skips a beat. “Good morning.”
I go over to peer over his shoulder.
“Oh wow, you are very good.”
He is. I realize now that all those paintings hanging in the corridor upstairs were done by him. As was probably the still life with the single rotten fruit. An actor, an entrepreneur, and now an artist. Is there no limit to what this man can do?
The scene he is painting is that of the valley, except that he has added details. The landscape is no longer of this world. Spires and fluted towers dot the purple and blue hills. Crafts in the shapes of alien insects, but which are obviously mechanical, swarm across the crimson sky.
The painting is far from finished. It’s still quite barren, but what’s already on the canvas astounds me.
He frowns. “It isn’t quite what I want it to be.”
“But it’s very, very good. You should have your own gallery. I would want to buy this.”
“You would want to buy this?” He averts his head to glance at me quizzically.
“Yeah, if I can afford it.”
I’m being honest. He does really have talent. I’m no art critic, but I do know what I would like to adorn my walls.
“It’s yours,” he says simply.
“Huh?”
“When I finish this, you can have it.”
I’m taken aback. “Oh no, you can’t give this to me. It’s too . . . too much.”
It is. All that hard work. All those days and days of being out here, letting his mind and imagination soar above the clouds – literally.
“Oh no, I mean it.” He is earnest. “There’s plenty more where it came from, and it’s the least I can do since your car crashed inside my property.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”
“Still.” He frowns. “Say, since you’re feeling better and all, Jeffrey can drive you to the hospital and drop you there for a checkup. Just to make sure you’re OK.”
I thought you didn’t want Jeffrey’s presence raising questions at the hospital. But of course, I’m not going to let him know I eavesdropped.
Ethan says, “He’ll drop you at Emergency and you can call him to pick you up when you’re finished. He has other errands to run.”
This comes off smoothly. But I can tell that he doesn’t want Jeffrey in the hospital. Hence the drop-off, now that I’m in walking and sound mental condition.
Just for a lark, I ask him, “Do you want to come with me to the hospital?”
It’s his turn to be flummoxed.
“I, uh, have errands to run too.”
“OK.” I ensure that the corners of my mouth droop slightly, giving off the air of disappointment.
He visibly flinches, and I allow myself a secret smile. Ethan Greene exhibits the classic symptoms of not being around people much, and so he quite doesn’t know how to maneuver himself skillfully amongst them. Especially the more manipulative ones.
I spend the rest of the morning chatting to him as he paints. We talk of nothing consequential, and he does not let too much of his personal life seep through. Nothing is said of his past.
It’s amazing how pleasant it is to talk to him. Even when we fall into silence, it’s companionable. There’s no pressure for us to say something interesting, and just watching him scrunch up his brow to concentrate on painting is enough for me.
Jeffrey serves us a picnic brunch all the way out here. We nibble on ham and cheese sandwiches, topped off by raspberry tea.
When the sun climbs high enough in the sky for me to call it noon, Ethan says, “I’ll drop you off at the hospital.”
“OK,” I say.
His secrets will be ferreted out in time.
*
Ethan is as good as his word.
He drops me off at the entrance of the little hospital in Aberdeen.
“Call me when you’re ready,” he says.
“Off to run your errands?” I inquire politely.
He gives me a wry smile. “Yes.”
I get that it’s a small town, even with Aberdeen combined, and everybody knows everybody else.
I register at the normal clinic, not at Emergency. The doctor who attends to me is a black woman –middle-aged, very attractive, and not as harried as I expect doctors to be. Maybe it’s because the waiting room is only half full. It’s probably one of the perks of living in a small town where almost nothing ever happens.
“A concussion, you say?” she asks. “I will have to send you for a CT scan, just to be sure there isn’t any internal hemorrhage.”
