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“I can’t even imagine how nice it will be to have everyone out of the house at the same time!”
Lisa thought,you’d better get a crib toobut didn’t say it out loud.
“Better late than never,” Betsy said. “It was nice talking.”
“See you Sunday.”
Lisa ended the call. Looking around her cottage, she wondered what she could give Ryan and Betsy as a housewarming gift. He hadn’t taken his paintings yet, so she went to the fireplace, stood on the hearth, and lifted the watercolor off its hook. She hadn’t been in Ryan’s house since it had been remodeled, but she knew from when Dan had lived there that there was a wall in the dining room where the beach scene would look nice.
“Daniela, I’m going to run this painting across the street,” she said.
Grabbing a coat, Lisa slipped her arms in and zipped up, covering her belly that was showing more every day.
She held the painting by the wire across the back and left the cottage. The blowing wind caught the canvas like a sail and pulled her through the gate and across the street. Memories of flying kites with her father filtered through her mind. She was trying to replace negative energy with positive. Jack’s sins hadn’t played out so that she’d been aware of what he was doing. So if Ryan, or Julie, or even Pam brought up a terrible memory, Lisa blocked it.
What difference did it make after all this time? She felt so empowered. Ryan was out of the house. Lisa was in control. Zach was in the friend zone at the present time, and she had no intention of complicating her relationship with him by adding intimacy. No.
Betsy stood at the door. “I saw you being pulled across the street with that thing,” she said, smiling. “Come in before it pulls you off the porch.”
“Ryan painted this, and I wanted you to have it for the house.”
“Oh, how lovely,” Betsy said, closing the door.
Lisa held up the painting for Betsy to see. Betsy examined it, oohing and aahing.
“He’s on his way home from the office, and I’ll let him choose a place to hang it.”
“I think it goes right there,” Lisa said, pointing to a large empty wall in the dining area that was visible from the living room.
“We can try it there. It looks like there’s already a nail in the wall.”
Betsy took the painting and hung it in the space.
“Beautiful,” Lisa said. “Like it was painted for this house.” She looked around. “This is the first time I’ve been inside since it was remodeled. It looks so different. Not a touch of brown anywhere.”
“Oh, it was brown?”
“All brown. Every house Dan has had was brown, if he had any say in it. I didn’t let him decorate our house in Hauppauge.”
“Wait, you and Dan were together?” Betsy asked, confused.
“Betsy, you know that,” Lisa answered. “The boys are Dan’s sons.”
“Oh, jeez, of course! I didn’t put two and two together. Dan!”
“Ha!” Lisa said, slapping her leg.
“Just between you and me, Dan’s hot.”
“He’s so hot,” Lisa said, laughing. The women high fived. “Did you meet Julie yet?”
“I did meet her. We had Margaret last weekend. What a doll.”
“So, you had all my kids, Alison’s kid, and Julie’s?”
“Yes! It was so much fun. I told Alison all of hers could come, but she said we’d regret it.”
The women laughed together, talking, deepening their friendship.
