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He carefully unwrapped the paper, then lifted the lid on the box, gasping when he discovered the sketchbook he and his mother had shared.
Matt’s hands shook as he pulled it from the box. When he hadn’t found it as they’d packed up his mother’s belongings following her death, Matt had assumed she’d destroyed it. That idea, combined with the night she’d died, convinced him that he’d broken Mom’s heart irrevocably, that he’d lost her due to his callousness.
Matt ran his finger over the cover, the sketchbook tatty from so many years of being passed back and forth between them. There were smudges of ink and pencil and deep creases that spoke of frequent use. In calligraphy, his mother had written, “The Artwork of Bianca and Matt Russo.”
Opening the book, Matt spent hours slowly leafing through the pages, studying the drawings, recalling what had inspired each of them, what had been happening in his life at the time. He’d been eight years old when his mother gave him the sketchbook with the first incomplete drawing—a funny picture of a dog on water-skis that Matt had finished by adding a crazy-looking cat driving the boat. His mom had titled it “Rex and Boots, Unlikely Summer Buddies.”
He laughed, admiring his mother’s talent, and his definite lack of skill in that first sketch.
He watched his skill improve with each drawing, as he and Mom tackled everything from silly caricatures to nature to still life to portraits. Every single sketch evoked a memory, some happy, some sad, all of them forgotten until right now, as his past came back in a display of pencil, ink, watercolors, charcoal, and even pastels. Mom was clearly a huge fan of color and shading, while Matt’s additions were always heavy on delicate strokes of the pencil, with an eye for fine detail.
Once a drawing was complete, Mom would choose the title, adding it to the page, then they’d both signed it with a flourish, as if they believed their silly sketches would someday be displayed in a museum or sold to art collectors for millions of dollars.
When Matt flipped to the last page, he stilled, staring at a drawing he’d never seen before. His mother had started one last “incomplete” sketch.
It was of him. An unfinished portrait.
Matt stared at the younger version of himself, studying that twenty-something man and trying to assimilate that face with the one that greeted him in the mirror nowadays. She’d drawn him with a smile on his face, sitting at a desk, concentrating on something on the surface. At first glance, he assumed he was working, but when he peered closer, he realized he was drawing in this very sketchbook. The page was blank.
Mom was the most talented artist he’d ever known, but this drawing…it was next level. There were so many layers, Matt could hardly take it all in, from the details in his eyes, his lips, the curve of his jaw, to the bright rays of sun streaking along the floor. The handsome man in the drawing sat up straight and tall, he looked confident, strong, ready to take on the world. What he didn’t look like was Dad—no frown, no harsh lines, no furrowed eyebrows, no anger in his eyes.
The Matt she’d drawn looked peaceful, happy.
Then his eyes landed on the bottom of the page, on the title of the piece.
“Look Deeper.”
Matt’s vision clouded with unshed tears as he saw his mother as she’d been that last night. She’d said the same thing to him, even as she’d sat there, ready to end her own life.
Were those words a reference to this drawing? Her way of telling him she loved him?
How could she have seen those positive things in him when he couldn’t even see them in himself?
Matt wasn’t sure how long he sat there, bombarded by memories and feelings he’d buried years ago. When it all became too much, he reached into the top desk drawer for the new art pencils he’d ordered when he was in Hawaii. He hadn’t touched them because, at first, he’d been too wrapped up in Liza, and for the last week and a half, too wrapped up in himself.
Bending toward Mom’s unfinished portrait, he did what he always did.
He finished it.
He decided to fill in that blank page in the drawing of the sketchbook. Mom—aware of his ability to create a lot of detail in a small space—had scaled it so that he would have plenty of room to add his part.
Working from memory, he drew a much smaller portrait of his mom. He only had enough room for her face, but that was all he needed. He didn’t want anything extra to pull his focus away from her. He sketched her as he wanted to remember her, smiling widely, looking at him with love and affection. Just as she had that day in Pompenis, as she’d traipsed around behind three unruly, silly boys, laughing at their antics.
Once the drawing was done, he leaned back to study it…and the calm he sensed in that younger version of himself washed through him. And for the first time since Mom had uttered those words, he looked deeper, trying to discover who he was, who he wanted to be.
Then he realized he’d already found shades of that man, thanks to Liza. She’d brought back his laughter, taught him how to trust again, forced him to stop focusing inward and to see the world and the people around him.
Without realizing it, she’d given him the strength to talk to his brothers. At the time, he’d thought he was giving up, but now, he could see she’d opened his eyes to the importance of family, of how much he longed to not just be present in Gage and Conor’s life but to be a part of it.
Turning the page in the sketchbook, Matt picked up his pencil and began a new drawing.
This one was of Liza, playing basketball with the kids in Promise House, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, knees bent as she prepared to shoot the ball. In the background, he sketched Devonte cheering her on as Matt stood in front of her, prepared to block.
Matt worked on the drawing until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Crawling into bed, he had his first sound sleep since the day he’d pushed Liza away.
When he woke up, he was not only refreshed, he was optimistic. He returned to his desk, to the sketchbook, his fingers flying over the pages as too many years of images fought to find their way out. Every emotion bled out of him onto the page. Therapy through art.
He recreated the drawing his dad had destroyed of Gage and Conor tossing the football; he added one of Arnold and Johnnie sharing their first dance after their wedding; another one of Mom, playing video games in the living room with Gage as Conor sat nearby, his nose buried in a book.
