Drawing Home

by Jamie Brenner

  So why did it feel so bad?

  Angus rang the doorbell at Windsong just after two in the afternoon to drop off the last of the boxes from Emma’s Mount Misery house. He was thoughtful enough to call ahead so Bea was expecting him.

  Bea found herself dressing with extra care. She wanted to look nice, but not too “done.” Still, no matter how hard she tried, she would never fit in with the town’s impossibly casual aesthetic; she would make it to her grave without ever having worn yoga pants or a sweatshirt. But she felt compelled to put forward a softer look. She chose a pair of navy slacks from Carolina Herrera’s resort collection. They were embellished with birds. She paired the pants with a white, lightweight knit top and a gauzy wrap. It was as casual as she could get.

  She told herself she was just trying to make her life simpler, to finally get into country living mode after all these weeks. That it had nothing to do with her visitor that afternoon.

  “Hello there, Bea,” said Angus, easing a large box into the foyer. “Where would you like these?”

  Back at the other house. Oh, she was trying to be less negative. Really, she was. “Do you want me to see if Kyle is around to help?” she said. “You shouldn’t be lifting all of this.”

  As soon as she made the offer, she remembered, yet again, that Kyle was no longer at her disposal. She had driven him off, perhaps prematurely. It was her way. And it was regrettable.

  “I’m just going to leave them right here until Emma gets back,” Angus said.

  Great. Now the front hall was a cluttered mess. “That’s fine,” said Bea.

  “Is Penny here? I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

  “Emma dropped her at the bookstore while she’s doing her errands in town,” Bea told him regretfully, not wanting him to leave. She didn’t know what to make of the urgent feeling of wanting his company, but she listened to it. “I brewed some peach tea and it should be chilled by now. I bought it from that organic place on the corner of Bay Street. Come have some.”

  “I don’t want to impose…”

  “Angus,” she said. “Please stop being polite with me. I’d like to think that we’re friends.”

  He smiled, and something deep inside of her began to thaw. She could feel it, like a loosening muscle. And it struck her, faced with all the boxes, that Angus was about to become homeless.

  “May I ask where you plan to move once you vacate your current house?”

  “I’m working on a few options. Until I find something permanent, I’ll be staying in one of the rooms upstairs at the whaling museum.”

  In the kitchen, she noted that he sat in the exact same spot at the island that he’d chosen the day Emma got served with the court papers. The thought made her shudder. If he ever found out about her role in that…

  Shaking the thought away, she pulled two glasses from the cabinet and sliced a lemon, a lime, and an orange. When she set the pitcher of tea and the sliced fruit in front of him he said, “That’s a lot of citrus.”

  “I got in the habit from the tea at the Golden Pear,” she said. “The way they do it is quite lovely.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  They sat in congenial silence for a few moments. She felt an unusual pressing need for him to think kindly of her. She didn’t understand it, but it prompted her to say, “Angus, you should consider moving in here. Kyle has left—there’s plenty of room. And I’m sure it would make Emma happy.”

  He shook his head. “I think you moving out would make Emma happy.”

  “Yes, well, I have news for you. One person does not mind having me around: Penny. I’ve proven to be great fodder for her art.”

  “Fodder?” he said.

  “Yes. Are you aware of her graphic novel?” The look on his face told her he’d had no idea. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  She took the stairs to her room. Last night, she’d pored over Penny’s drawings and selected a few pages for Penny to submit for her contest. But she was not ready to hand it all back over to her. Instead, she had placed it side by side with Henry’s book, certain there was something she was missing. It nagged at her all night. At four in the morning, she began flipping through them both, and she’d kept at it until the sun came up.

  She went back down the stairs. Her body ached but her mind, her spirit, felt lighter. Oh, to share this puzzle with someone else! What a relief.

  She moved the tea pitcher out of the way and wiped condensation from the marble surface before setting down both manuscripts. “Penny has been working on this since she moved in,” Bea said, sliding her work over to him. “Be careful, the pages are loose.”

  “Queen Bea,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “She has quite a sensibility,” Bea said.

  “I know she’s constantly reading these graphic books, but I didn’t realize she’d set out to write one of her own.”

  “I think Henry encouraged her. They were working on them last summer. In fact, he finished one himself. I found it at the library. And I want to show you something in it.” She flipped to the back of the book where Henry had written their conversation about the house becoming a museum. “See? I didn’t make this up. I’m not the villain here.” Except in Penny’s novel, of course.

  “Bea,” Angus said, his expression softening. “I never thought you were a villain. I just knew Emma wasn’t at fault here. If anyone muddied the waters, it was Henry. He should have made his intentions clear to you.”

  It was true. And she knew it wasn’t an oversight.

  She turned to the last pages of the book and paused at the empty dining room of Windsong, the pool visible through the wall of glass.

  Angus read through Penny’s book, chuckling at some of her dialogue. He pulled aside one page, a drawing of the four of them facing off around the dining-room table. It was the day Bea had first discovered them at the house.

  “Henry knew you for many years, right?” Angus said.

  “Over fifty,” she said.

  “He might have guessed you would run out here, lay claim to the house. That you wouldn’t give up so easily. He could have avoided that if he’d told you his wishes ahead of time. Okay, let’s say he didn’t want to argue with you, didn’t want to debate it. He could have just left you a note with his will stating his intentions. And that could have prevented this scene.” He slid the drawing over to her. “You told me once he did everything by design.”

  Bea took the paper from him. Every blank piece of paper is just a drawing waiting to be completed.

  “What are you saying?”

  Angus shrugged. “I didn’t know the man very well. I met him a few times picking up Penny from the hotel. But I do know that when my wife was ill, she was thinking more about me than about herself. That’s what you do when you love someone. She didn’t want me to be alone and she made me promise to stay with the Mapsons. She said she couldn’t rest in peace knowing I was alone.”

  Bea turned to the back of his book, the final empty pages. And she slid Penny’s drawing of the four of them standing together in the dining room right into the end. She looked at it and shook her head.

  “Henry would know I’d never want to live out here with some woman and her child. That’s not who I am! No, this isn’t the answer at all.”

  And yet her hand shook as she closed the book.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Her mother had sneaked off without saying good-bye that morning. She thought Penny didn’t know about the court date, but Penny knew everything. How could she not? Her mom did a lot of talking, and really, most of the house was just one big open room. It had been a lot easier to keep secrets on Mount Misery. That’s how Penny had gotten herself into trouble in the first place.

  She didn’t say any of this to Dr. Wang.

  “Your mother’s not here today?”

  Penny shook her head. “Just me.”

  Angus was outside in the waiting room. He’d told her on the drive over that her mother had a “meeting.” Secrets! L
ies! The endless suckage of being a kid. This had to do with her life too. Didn’t anyone care about that? Just thinking about it made her squirm in her seat.

  She considered a trip to the bathroom, but then remembered she didn’t have her Purell. She was trying, really trying, not to give in to her compulsions. She’d left her hand sanitizer at home on her nightstand.

  “How’s the positivity board going?” Dr. Wang asked.

  “I haven’t worked on it very much,” Penny said.

  “And why is that?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Penny, if you don’t do your exercises and follow my directions, then I can’t help you.”

  Maybe not. But something was helping. She thought of the way she’d bossed it back at the ocean that day with her dad. She thought of the entire graphic novel she’d written without throwing away drawings to start over. She looked at the back of her hands, barely dry. No cracks. No bleeding. Didn’t Dr. Wang notice?

  Art was her positivity board. But Dr. Wang would never understand.

  Emma thought she had mentally prepared herself for the court appearance. But she realized, sitting on a long wooden bench in the corridor of the courthouse, that all along she had been in some degree of denial. Accepting the full weight of the situation all these weeks would have crushed her. Now, seeing Andrew Port walk in wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, there was no avoiding what was happening, no glossing over what was at stake. Her insides felt like liquid, like the only thing holding her together was the external shell. Even that was about to crack.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just sit tight,” Andrew said. She watched him walk down the hall to consult with Mark’s lawyer, Carter Shift, a much older, stout man wearing a seersucker suit and a pink and silver tie. So far, she hadn’t seen Mark. The sight of him should just about do her in entirely.

  She fumbled through her bag for the paperback she’d brought with her. It was a reread—she couldn’t focus on anything new. She opened the book and the words swam in front of her eyes, as impossible to process as if they’d been written in a foreign language.

  Someone sat next to her. She glanced over, bracing for whatever update Andrew would give her. Instead, she found Kyle.

  “Oh! Hi. What are you doing here?”

  She hadn’t seen him in days, not since the afternoon on Long Wharf when he’d barely nodded at her. She’d walked down to the Windsong dock every night, but he was never there. She knew she could find out where he was if she asked Sean and that she should reach out to him, but she didn’t. It was like the situation with her job; she wasn’t in a better place, and she wasn’t capable of offering any more of herself now than she had been before. So she did nothing.

  “I wanted to be here for support.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You really have been such a help and I’m sorry if I’ve seemed ungrateful.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Emma. We’re friends.”

  She squeezed back.

  “Where’s Andrew?” he said.

  “He’s down the hall somewhere. Talking to Mark’s lawyer.”

  Kyle leaned forward, peering down the corridor. “I see him. He’s heading back.”

  Andrew walked briskly, all business. Emma sensed he was keyed up, like an athlete before a big game. He nodded at Kyle and sat on Emma’s other side.

  “So we’re just waiting for Mark to get here,” he said. “Then I’m going to negotiate—with your input—with the opposing counsel to try to come to a compromise. The court wants us to work this out, and trust me, it’s always better not to go before the judge.”

  She swallowed hard. “I just don’t know what the compromise would be. I don’t think he should even have partial custody.”

  “I know you don’t. But it might be better than the alternative.”

  Kyle put his arm around her. Andrew pulled a stack of papers from under his arm.

  Minutes dragged by. Carter Shift strode over and signaled to Andrew. The two of them walked off, heads bent together.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “Em, try not to freak out,” Kyle said. “It’s going to be a long day and you need to just trust Andrew to do his job. That’s why you’re paying him.”

  Kyle reached for her hand. For a moment, it was comforting. More waiting. When she finally saw Andrew walking back to them, she jumped up.

  “Any news?”

  “Mark is here. I’ve been negotiating with his attorney but we’re not getting anywhere.”

  “So what does that mean?” Emma said.

  Carter Shift walked toward them. He didn’t so much as glance at Emma—not that she wanted to be forced to smile or talk to him. Still, it was dehumanizing. But maybe that was the point. His job was to take her child away from her.

  “Can your client meet?” he said.

  Andrew said something affirmative, and before she knew what was happening, she was following him down a hall that seemed to stretch on forever. Her uncomfortable heels, last worn at a funeral, made too much noise against the tile floor. Carter Shift walked a few feet ahead of them. No one said a word.

  The sight of Mark inside the conference room was a punch to the gut.

  He was tan, dressed in a sports jacket and khakis. He didn’t look like an out-of-work actor. He looked like perfect casting for the role of Handsome Dad.

  The room was bare, with just a long rectangular table surrounded by half a dozen wood chairs. The air-conditioning unit wheezed freezing air. She sat next to Andrew on the side of the table closest to the door. Mark sat directly opposite her. She glared at him. I can’t believe you’re doing this. He avoided her eyes. Coward.

  “You want to open here, Andrew?” said Carter.

  Andrew shuffled through some papers. “I’ll reiterate: My client has been the sole custodial parent for the past thirteen years. There is no material change of circumstance and there is no cause for changing custody. She is willing to consider expanded visitation.”

  Carter shook his head as if they’d been over this a dozen times already—which they probably had. He took off his glasses and looked at Emma.

  “That’s not going to cut it, Andrew. My client is not willing to leave his minor child unsupervised for twelve hours a day—a lack of parental control that resulted in an accident that left her with a broken leg. In addition to that is the fact that your client has ignored the advice of the child’s psychiatrist to medicate in order to treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which leaves the child suffering unnecessarily. Your client has showed a reckless disregard for the child’s safety and well-being.”

  Emma turned to Andrew. Reckless disregard? Was he serious?

  Someone knocked on the door and before anyone could respond, an officer of the court poked his head in.

  “Can I speak to counsel?”

  Andrew and Mark’s attorney conferred in the doorway. Emma glanced at Mark. His expression was wounded, as if she were the one doing this to him. How unbelievable that she had once loved this man. He had held her hand while she gave birth, and now he was trying to destroy her life. Because that is what it would do if she lost Penny. How had she gotten into this position? How had things gone so terribly off course?

  The house.

  She should have known the day Henry Wyatt’s lawyer showed up that it was too good to be true. She was Cinderella and the clock was striking midnight.

  The lawyers returned to the table and packed up their paperwork.

  “The judge is calling us in,” Andrew said to her.

  She followed him back into the hallway, Mark and his lawyer a few feet behind them. Again, the long walk, the clacking of her heels. Andrew stopped in front of an elevator. Mark took the stairs.

  “What does this mean?” she whispered to Andrew.

  “The judge will want to make sure both parties understand what happens if we can’t come to an agreement today. He’s going to really stress how beneficial it would
be—not just for you, but for the child—to get this settled.”

  “Can we?”

  “Your ex isn’t budging. So unless you want to give in—and obviously you don’t—I’m afraid not.”

  Courtroom B was on the second floor. Outside the door, a list of cases being litigated that day. She spotted Mapson v. Mapson.

  Inside, the room was smaller than she’d expected but otherwise exactly like the courtrooms she’d seen on television. Lots of wood paneling; long benches for seating. A wooden divide up front with a low swinging door and, beyond that, the elevated bench area for the judge. The only people in the room were a court officer and a stenographer.

  Emma followed Andrew down the center aisle and sat next to him in the second row. Across the aisle, Mark took his place next to his attorney.

  Andrew checked his phone. The gesture shocked her. How could he think of anything except what was about to happen in that room? She rubbed her hands together. They were like ice.

  The court officer announced the Honorable Gerald K. Walker, and a man with brown hair threaded with silver and a ruddy complexion took to the bench. Judge Walker spoke to the court officer and then called Andrew and Mark’s attorney to the front. They seemed to talk for a long time, though it was probably less than five minutes. Annoying phone habit aside, she felt better when Andrew was beside her and was relieved when he finally slid back into his seat.

  “Ms. Mapson, Mr. Mapson. Your attorneys have advised me you are not reaching a settlement today. I encourage you to go back to conference and give it one last try. Otherwise, we will set a date for trial. We will have to establish home visits and I will assign a court psychologist to interview the minor child. The trial date will be roughly six months from now—”

  Something captured the judge’s attention. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the back of the room.

  “Ma’am, this is a closed hearing.”

  Everyone turned, and Emma gasped. Bea made her way down the aisle, dressed in a red, black, and white Chanel suit with ropes and ropes of pearls. She was a peacock in a roomful of pigeons. She marched forward like it was a royal court and she was queen.