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I feel the sun on my back and a sense of anticipation bubbling up from within. I am finally doing something I've planned for quite a while; I'm helping to create something beautiful in this long-neglected area of town.
My swollen belly leads the way as I shuffle forward, paint cans clanking in my arms. The smell of fresh paint mingles with exhaust fumes. A city bus wheezes past, brakes screeching.
Beside me, Dare claps his hands and rubs them together, turning away from the wall and toward the group of Hope House kids. We've gathered an eclectic crew - a gaggle of wide-eyed children, their small hands clutching oversized paintbrushes.
He crouches, putting himself on their level. "What should we paint today? What story will we tell on this blank canvas?"
He waves toward the wall.His sleeves are rolled up, a smudge of blue paint already streaking his cheek.
One boy raises his hand and then shouts, "A bus full of kids on a ride!"
Dare nods. "We can put that over here, on a hill maybe?" His hand waves toward one side of the blank canvas. "Maybe we'll do a landscape. The sun in the top left over a pretty blue sky. Then maybe pieces of our town below? We could paint a bus full of kids on the way to school."
Solana walks over to me, her dark pigtails bouncing, a huge smile on her face.
"What are you painting?" she asks me, brown eyes dancing.
I smile down at her eager face. "That's up to you. A forest? The sea? Our town?"
Her nose crinkles in thought. She points to my belly. "Let's paint a baby! No, ten thousand babies! Ten million mothers, holding their babies."
Laughter bubbles up. "Let's start with one mom with one baby for now. Does that sound good?"
She nods. "What about Dare? What is he painting?"
"Why don't you ask?" I suggest.
She pushes up the strap of her pink overalls, turning toward Dare. Marching over to him, she asks him a question. They're too far away from me to hear it but the look of happiness that lights up his entire being makes my heart ache.
Dare doesn't know it, but he was born to do this work with these kids. I think he needs it even more than I do.
Dare lifts Solana onto his shoulders with a grin. She squeals in delight and he chuckles.
Aunt Minnie walks up, pointing to my husband with a paintbrush dripping with orange paint.
"He's changing," she says.
I press my hands to my belly, where the baby is currently doing somersaults. "You're right. He's becoming the father I know he can be. The man behind the billionaire facade."
Minnie wiggles her eyebrows at me.
"It's about damn time. I thought he would always be a selfish little boy."
I smile, shrugging a shoulder. Minnie seems to be looking for some kind of response to her allegation, so I slide my arm around her bony shoulders and ask her to help instruct the children on how to decide what they want to paint. I always ask Minnie where her inspiration comes from and I'm met with a puzzled glance.
But today she happily starts asking a small group of kids what they think should go in the bottom right corner of the mural. The kids are downright jubilant, and her question is met with several shouted suggestions.
I turn, cupping my hands to my mouth to call to everyone present.
"Alright troops," I called out. "Let's make some magic..."
Brushes swish through paint cans, vivid hues spreading. With each stroke, our mural comes alive - a fantastical landscape emerges. Greens and blues, purples and golds. Beauty transforming bland brick into a vision.
Solana perches on a step ladder adding finishing touches, an artist in her element. Her tiny handiwork brings it all together. As I step back to admire, she slips. Dare lunges, catches her just in time.
"My hero," she proclaims, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Pride swells within me. This, right here?
