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ases, pulling out the ones that looked finished, stacking them against the window. When he was done with that he had twenty of them. A half a dozen more, unfinished, abandoned like inadequate lovers, bad boyfriends, were still in the stacks.
He sat on the floor and studied them. They didn’t make much sense. Didn’t tell a story. He’d hoped there might be more self-portraits. In front of him were landscapes, seascapes, and one scene of a tumbledown derelict house. She’d painted it to look freshly haunted. As though if he touched it, his hand would come away damp and gritty.
When she came back into the room and sat beside him he didn’t speak. He waited for her to. She sat for a long time before she did and her voice didn’t sound right, it’d lost all its certainty.
“I gave this up. I gave it up because I couldn’t have this and a career too.”
What she’d said was coldly practical, but it sounded like heartbreak. But then what did he know, about painting, or about the woman who sat tensely beside him?
“I haven’t held a paintbrush for five years. I’ve never painted in this room. It’s just storage.”
He lifted his arm and she scooted under it to lean against him. “I should have it packed up; give the canvases away.”
“You should paint again.”
“I’ve probably forgotten how. It was a bit of escapism. I don’t need it anymore.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“When I’m old and grey I can take it up again for fun.”
This didn’t look like fun. What Buster did with glue, sparkles and buttons, with knitted animals and scrapbooks before her fingers seized up, looked like fun. This looked like hard work, like struggle, creation and passion. “This was no fun.”
She shook her head and he knew he was looking at Jacinta’s coding, what wired her, the place where she lived.
He kissed her temple and she turned into him. There were tears in her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want you to come in here.”
He loved that she didn’t try to hide her distress. “I can’t do any harm. I’m only passing through.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
He shifted a little closer. Did she feel what he did? That he’d glimpsed something sacred in her, something no one else knew. That he didn’t like the idea of giving it up.
“My mother painted. She wasn’t just decorative. She was good, not like me, she had real talent. Could’ve had her own shows. Sold her work. Made real money. She gave it up because Malcolm thought it was in poor taste. She gave it up like it was nothing. I don’t know why I‘ve had such trouble feeling okay about giving it up.”
“You’ve got talent.”
She turned her head and bit his shoulder. “What do you know about art?”
“Nothing. But I know what I’m looking at.”
“Bowl me over with your critique, Master.”
He might have thumped Dillon for a crack like that. He pulled her around so they were face to face. “I know fuck all about paint. I’m looking at your DNA. That’s what you’re made of. That’s what makes you hurt, and gives you joy. That’s what you’re sacrificing.” He touched the helix of her ear, cupped her skull. “It’s a big call to give away what makes you feel alive.”
She blinked at him, her eyes filled with tears again. ‘”What are you doing to me?”
“Seeing you.”
“You need to unsee. I’m not who you think I am.” Whoever she thought she was, she didn’t want to be this person, the one who could put images on canvas that felt like they could flood, burn, spook the room.
He dipped his head and kissed her forehead. “Can’t do that.”
“I knew you were dangerous.”
She was joking at least, but she’d painted her fear and covered it with a sheet and he needed to know.
He looked across at the easel. “The one who hurt you. Is that who you’re running from?”
