AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Because I was quite amazed.” Nate paused and took a step closer, his head bent low even though the three of them were the only ones around, “and pleased when I found out the Vanessa Brent who’s running an afterschool art program at the community center and V. E. Brent, world-famous abstract expressionism artist, were one and the same.”
Nate’s soft-spoken words took her completely by surprise.
Not that she went out of her way to hide who she was or what she did with her life before moving to Rust Creek Falls back in July. When asked, she’d only said she’d worked in the creative arts, but was currently on a time-out, rethinking her career plans. She’d then change the topic of conversation because deep down, the explanation had more than a ring of truth to it.
Or more simply put, she hadn’t painted anything in almost a year.
Oh, she’d thought about her craft often, obsessed about it, really. At least until she’d moved out here. Lately, she’d begun to dream about it again, like she’d done as a child. But even though she’d brought along all of her supplies, the white canvases that lined one wall of the cabin she’d rented a few weeks after arriving in town were still blank. Her paints and brushes lay untouched, her heart and her mind as vacant as the walls that surrounded them now.
“Ah, yeah, we’re the same person,” she finally responded to the expectant looks on Nate’s and Callie’s faces. “I mean, yes, I’m V. E. Brent, but I haven’t...been involved with the art world for quite some time.”
Even now, Vanessa was still surprised at the deep depression she’d sunk into after Adele’s death last year. Or the fact that she hadn’t been able to fill the void with her art.
Adele had hung on until just before Thanksgiving and the day of her memorial service had been the start of an arctic winter that had settled in Philadelphia, and most of the country. Vanessa, too, had become locked in her own personal deep freeze. For months she’d mourned, but unlike when her mother died, she failed to find the same solace and comfort in her work. No matter how hard she’d tried, no matter the techniques or tools she employed, her gift had faded into a vast wasteland where nothing flourished.
Even after she’d finally broken out of her self-imposed grieving this past spring, thanks to an intervention led by Adele’s mother, the ability to create was still dormant and she’d decided something drastic was needed to shake her back into the world of the living.
Number ten: move out west.
Vanessa had been reading a weekly blog by a big-city volunteer coordinator who’d moved to Rust Creek Falls to help the town recover from a devastating flood the year before and ended up falling in love and marrying the local sheriff. Soon the idea to move to this little slice of cowboy heaven planted itself in her head and wouldn’t let go. So she’d sublet her loft apartment, refused to listen to her father’s halfhearted attempts to change her mind and bought a one-way plane ticket to Big Sky Country, placing the first check mark on her and Adele’s bucket list in months by arriving just before the July Fourth holiday.
“But you are involved in art,” Callie said, breaking into Vanessa’s thoughts. “You’re great with the kids at the community center.”
Vanessa smiled, remembering how she’d gotten roped into helping with a summer day camp that’d showed up at the center looking to entertain a group of kids on a rainy day. “That’s pretty much finger painting, playing with clay or simple watercolors. Other than that I’m not...”
Her voice cracked and she looked away, that familiar lump back in her throat. Damn! She walked across the vast space, her gaze centered on the empty fireplace. “I’m not...well, let’s just say that side of me—V. E. Brent—she isn’t painting. At all.”
“Oh, please don’t think we’ve invaded your privacy.” Callie hurried to her side. “We haven’t told anyone else who you really are. Nate came up with this idea before we even knew thanks to your beautiful sketches.”
She looked back at them. “My sketches?”
“Yes, the ones you’ve been doing of the locals around town. They’re amazing. I love the portrait you did of me when I was tending to a scraped knee at the playground. I never even realized what you were up to until you gave it to me. I’ve got it hanging in my office at the clinic.”
A few weeks after her kids program took off, Vanessa had started to once again carry a sketch pad and colored pencils in her oversize bag.
Something she hadn’t done in months.
At first, the blank pages seemed to mock her whenever she opened the pad, but then she’d forced herself to do quick exercises, simple pen-and-ink sketches of whatever might catch her eye.
