by Alice Archer
“Grant,” she said through the open driver’s side window.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yes. Very well. Thank you for asking.” She nodded down at me. “You’re looking better these days. Are you okay?”
“Yep. Slowly coming back to life. Hey, I have a question for you. Do you know of any blackberry thickets within walking distance of Oliver’s that are huge, like really huge?”
“That’s… um…” Clementine blinked. I considered apologizing for my abrupt question, but didn’t. I stayed silent as she thought.
“Honestly,” she said, “if there’s a bramble anywhere within walking distance of Oliver’s, he’s the person who would know.”
“I get that, but humor me.”
“Well, the largest bramble I know of is on Bast Road, but that’s not close to Oliver’s, even if you hike through the woods instead of go by the roads. I could drive you there now, if you want, then you could walk back to…” She hesitated. “Oliver’s house?”
Clementine and I had never talked about where I was staying. I suspected Oliver had told her I was camping in the woods. I gave Clementine a playful, stern look meant to chide her for engaging in gossip about me.
She cleared her throat and said with fake sincerity, “Or wherever you live these days.”
I laughed, and we smiled at each other while I considered her offer. As much as I wanted to see that bramble, my body craved a lie-down in my tent with a big bowl of food.
“Oh, what the heck.” I shrugged and stood to get into the car. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Clementine drove as if she intended to kick up as little dust as possible in her passage through life. We inched along and talked. I tried to make her laugh. I wanted to ask her about Aza, but I only knew about him through my invasion of her privacy. Maybe I could work my way around to it.
“How do you know Oliver?” I asked.
“Oliver saved my son’s life.”
I kept my mouth shut on my thought that her session with Oliver seemed to have been about a son who’d died. Maybe she had more than one son.
“Oh, yeah? How?” I asked.
“Ages ago, there was a sort of artistic social circle on Vashon that revolved around Matteo and Lucca—Oliver’s grandfather and father. My son, Aza, started painting lessons with Oliver when he was five and Oliver was nine.”
“Oliver gave art lessons at age nine?”
“Aza was his first pupil, but yes. Oliver was a better art teacher at nine than any of the adults we tried out for Aza. Well, except for Lucca and Matteo, who taught Oliver.”
In Oliver’s mural on the side of the house, the pack of boys who roamed the island included a small, black-haired boy always running to catch up, little legs spinning in a blur. I wondered if that was Aza.
“Aza was sixteen when his dad left me and moved to New York.” Clementine’s impassive delivery, the way she stuck to facts, gave the impression of a cop briefing a colleague. Clementine slowed the car to a stop when Violetta ended at Bast Road.
“Are you sure you want to tell me this?” I asked. “It seems like hard work. I don’t want to—”
“Yes. I do,” Clementine said, but then she didn’t say anything more.
“Aza stayed here, on Vashon?” I prompted.
“He withdrew. He got in trouble at school.” With a sigh, Clementine put the car into park. “My parenting skills were not great. I was out of my depth, but didn’t tell anyone. When Robert left, our plan was for Aza to spend the school year with me and summers with him in New York. I figured Robert would straighten Aza out over the summer, so I let his behavior slide.”
I reached over to give Clementine’s shoulder a pat.
“I’m all right,” she said. “It helps to tell it. I know it’s heavy, and we don’t really know each other. I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem.”
After a nod, Clementine said, “I caught Aza skipping school too many times and finally told Robert, who threatened to send Aza to boarding school. Aza told Oliver. I didn’t know what to do. I had such a bad feeling about Aza going to boarding school.”
“What did Oliver say?”
“We got on a call—me, Aza, Robert, and Oliver—to try to figure out a solution. Aza wanted to stay on Vashon. He promised to straighten up if we let him do an intensive painting mentorship with Oliver. Oliver was willing. All Oliver wanted in exchange was for Aza to design and create a piece of art for the property. It was an inspired arrangement. My son always had so much energy. Oliver’s plan was designed to help Aza manage his energy, in multiple ways.”
“Robert agreed?”
“Yes. Reluctantly, but yes. He knew and respected Oliver and Lucca, so he was willing to try the arrangement.”
A dog trotted out of nowhere and barked at the Volvo. I startled and put a hand to my chest. “Jesus.” For all its dryness, Clementine’s delivery had reeled me in.
“I forgot we were sitting here in your car,” I said. “You’re a great storyteller, but I’m kind of scared for you to continue. I’m not sensing a happy ending.”
“I’ve only told the story a few times. Each time, I gain a little distance, see the story instead of only the…”
“Pain,” I said.
“Yes.” She glanced at me. “I do sessions with Oliver to loosen things—sometimes big chunks of grief and guilt come loose. It’s hard, but it’s always worth it.”
Clementine didn’t seem inclined to drive on yet.
“What were Aza’s paintings like?” I asked.
“Before Oliver and Lucca took him in, the only classes at school Aza did well in were art classes. At sixteen, he was already an accomplished artist, but during his intensive with Oliver, his painting became extraordinary, levels above anything he’d approached before. Dark, to be sure, but when you looked at them, you had to feel.”
“What do you mean, ‘Before Oliver and Lucca took him in’?”
Clementine let out a slow breath.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I offered, though I really wanted to know.
“It’s easier to talk about since I don’t know you. If you don’t mind?”
“I’m riveted,” I said.
“Aza didn’t want to live with me anymore. Oliver and Lucca let him stay with them. Aza finished his junior year with much better grades. It seemed like a miracle. He negotiated with his dad to be allowed to stay at Oliver’s for the summer. That saved Aza. I’m certain.”
I’d seen Clementine’s grief when I’d spied on her session at Oliver’s. I almost couldn’t bear the suspense of finding out what had happened to Aza.
“It didn’t last,” Clementine said in a soft voice. “Through Oliver’s connections in Seattle, Aza got a show at a gallery near Pioneer Square. It was a very big deal, and the show was a great success. There were only two paintings that didn’t sell.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
“And that was when we stumbled, all of us except Oliver.”
“How so?”
“Aza decided, against Oliver’s advice, that he was ready for New York. He packed up and moved to live with Robert and attend public school in New York City for his senior year.”
“Damn. That must have been hard for you.”
Clementine pressed her lips together, hunched forward to put the car into drive, but didn’t take her foot off the brake. “Robert and I thought it was a good idea. Aza was adamant about it. Oliver tried hard to talk us all out of it. All the work he and Aza had done together had given Aza more confidence, and he’d grown up a lot, but Oliver insisted, to any of us who would listen, which was none of us, that Aza wasn’t prepared for New York City.”
By then my curiosity was eating me alive. Because I couldn’t handle the anticipation, I asked a loaded question—a rude question, since I
suspected Aza was dead. “Is Aza still there, in New York?”
Clementine took her foot off the brake and made a left turn onto Bast.
I kept quiet, hoped her discomfort was greater than mine and would make her talk. I felt ashamed and determined in equal measure.
After a silence that charged the air, Clementine pointed. “There.” She slowed to a stop.
Drawn by the largest blackberry thicket I’d ever seen, I got out of the car for a better view. While I gaped, Clementine offered a tip about a trail back to Oliver’s. She handed me her business card through the window and drove away.
The Volvo disappeared in the distance, leaving me with a blackberry thicket as tangled and thorny as my unanswered questions.
Chapter 44
Grant
“Will we go even if it rains?” Clover asked me.
“Nope,” I said.
The kids and I sat around the picnic table on Thursday afternoon of week three, sheltered by the awning from the drizzle, or “needle rain,” as Clover called it, “because of the billion tiny, stabbing raindrops.” In spite of the rain, the kids had shown up to coax details from me about our upcoming adventure.
Clover’s yellow rain gear squeaked whenever she shifted on the bench.
“You look ready for a deluge.” I said to her. “Very cheery. Like a buttercup.”
“If you tell us what we’re doing, we can prepare better,” Jill tried.
I smiled and shook my head.
Penelope, our voice of practicality, stuck to the certainties. “Raise your hand if you can go.”
“Saturday, right?” Clover looked at Penelope for an answer, which made me chuckle. Someday I’d stand in a voting booth and look down to see Penelope’s name on the ballot. President Penelope. It had a nice ring to it.
Jill, Clover, Kai, and I all raised our hands—our informal vote to put Penelope in office. I couldn’t help the snicker that slipped out. Everyone looked at me, which only made it harder to contain my mirth.
“What’s so funny?” President Penelope paused the proceedings.
I laughed harder.
“Just… oh, man.” I leaned forward on my elbows and put my head in my hands to pull myself together. “President Penelope,” I managed to say through my laughter.
When Jill and Clover started laughing and Kai smiled up at me, I felt a rush of affection.
Clover spoke over our chuckles. “We might have one more person. If that’s okay.” When she looked at Penelope again, I wasn’t the only one who snickered.
“You talked to Abelino?” I asked Clover.
“I walked by his house and he came out. He didn’t say much, but he let me tell him things. I could invite him.”
“He might like to have an adventure,” Jill said.
“Maybe.” Clover seemed skeptical.
“Nice of you to want to include him, buttercup.”
Kai spoke for the first time. “What should we bring?”
Jill jumped like Kai had poked her.
“What?” Kai’s eyebrows pulled together with concern.
“You spoke.” She patted Kai’s forearm. “It just surprised me.”
“Let’s see,” I said, to draw attention away from Kai. “Bring a lunch. And a bicycle—got to have that. Boots or some kind of sturdy shoes. Socks, long pants, long-sleeved shirt. A denim or canvas jacket, if you have one. Um… knee pads would be handy. A hat that’s not knit.”
I stood to fetch our one notepad and tossed it onto the picnic table with a pen. Penelope pounced, as I’d known she would. She organized everyone, made a list of who had what and who needed to borrow what, coordinated Jill’s repair of the extra bike for Abelino.
As I prepared us a snack of saltine crackers, sunflower seeds in the shell, and celery sticks, I mulled over the feeling I’d forgotten something. I had yet to invite Oliver, but that wasn’t it. It had something to do with Penelope writing on the notepad. When nothing came to mind, I shrugged and carried the snacks over to the table.
Oliver continued to spy on us from the window in the courtyard or his perch in the tree behind the workshop. Now and then, he would grace us with his presence for a few minutes, say hello, but then wander away before I could get a good read on him.
He worried me. The cavalier, easygoing artist who’d exasperated me in the early weeks seemed more like his normal self than the spying waif he’d become.
On Friday, I emerged from the woods and spotted Oliver through a kitchen window. I snuck around to the back door and pounded on it with both fists.
Oliver’s yelp from inside carried through the door. He opened the door with a fierce glare. For some sick reason, it reassured me to provoke him into losing his cool.
“What the fuck?” Oliver snapped the sharp words at me.
I took two steps forward, into the house, and Oliver backed away.
“I didn’t invite you inside,” Oliver said.
“Cranky today, are we?” I made my voice cheerful and bright, part of my devious plan to irritate Oliver into exposing more of his layers. “Don’t worry. This won’t take long.”
Oliver’s loose shirt—a smock, I remembered him calling it—sported fingerprint paint smudges at the hem. Strands of glossy hair had fallen from the topknot. One strand had dipped into a puddle of blue. Without thinking, I lifted my hand to touch it.
Oliver’s flinch reminded me of my mission, and I let my hand drop.
“I’m taking the kids on a blackberry adventure for my week three assignment,” I said. “We want you to join us. Tomorrow at ten in the courtyard. Don’t tell the kids about the blackberries. I want to surprise them.”
The annoyed furrow between Oliver’s brows relaxed for a second. His eyes softened. “That’s… nice.”
“Interested?” I prompted.
“Which bramble? There’s one out past the throne. It’s only a twenty-minute walk, but it’s hard to find. Did you find it? Is that where you’re going?”
Oliver’s motormouth reaction was cute. I ignored his questions. “Throne?”
With a roll of his eyes, Oliver said, “I know you know about the throne I’m carving. Out past the toolshed?”
“Oh. You mean your stump chair past the workshop.” I folded my arms over my chest and put some challenge in my stare, just to mess with him.
“What’s your point, Grant? That we don’t live in the same world? That’s old news.”
I ignored his jab. “So. Are you in?”
“Which bramble?”
“Why do you care?”
“I just… do.” The shrug Oliver tried to pull off as casual was anything but, due to his tense shoulders.
I bowed my head toward him and whispered, “It’s a surprise.”
The rise and fall of Oliver’s chest sped up. A slight flush overtook his tanned cheeks. I pulled back, curious about what had upset him. Whatever I’d said or done, Oliver considered it offensive enough to shut down the conversation.
“Get out.” He tapped my chest with a fist, a reluctant touch to push me away.
I shrugged and stepped back onto the porch. “The invitation stands, if you change your mind.”
“I never said I wouldn’t go,” Oliver bit out before he slammed the door on my smug smile.
Chapter 45
Grant
Saturday morning arrived with a glorious, sunny flourish. By ten o’clock the courtyard echoed with excited laughter and young voices.
I shoved a bag of carrot sticks into my daypack on top of the splurge of snacks I’d bought in town to share and the collection of tools snagged from the workshop, wrapped in shop cloths to minimize the rattle. It all made the pack heavy and lumpy. I was too eager to care.
I asked the kids to line up in a row in front of me. Clover had persuaded Abelino to join us and I got my first good
look at him. His name, height, and long hair—jet-black and down to the middle of his back—likely didn’t do him any favors at school. Or maybe I was a cynic. Maybe Vashon schools were more enlightened about bullying than the rural schools I’d attended near the Idaho border. I hoped so.
I sat on the picnic bench with my back against the table and gestured Abelino forward. He came with reluctance and a quick glance at Clover.
“Hey, Abelino,” I said.
He stopped a few feet in front of me.
“I’m really glad you could join us.”
Abelino nodded, very serious. I thought I saw actual fear in his eyes, so I leaned back to rest my forearms on the table and make it easy for him to keep track of my hands. “Your hair might be a bit tricky. When we get to where we’re going, could put your hair up in a hat? I don’t want it to get hurt.”
Abelino said, “I brought a hat. And a…” He held up his arm to show me the hair band around his wrist. His voice was deeper than I’d expected, but gentle.
“Perfect,” I said.
Abelino returned to stand between Clover and shy Kai, who stole a look up at Abelino out of the corner of his eye.
I inspected each kid in turn. There wasn’t much else to tweak. The extravagant way they’d overdressed—bulky layers, full pockets, odd hats, work gloves—evoked sci-fi movie rebels up to no good on purpose. “We’ve got a bunch of overachievers here,” I said. “You look like a gang of tough guys I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.”
“We might have to rough you up if you don’t tell us what we’re doing soon,” Penelope fake-threatened.
“Dream on.” I stood to shrug on my daypack.
Since I didn’t have a bicycle, I’d decided I would hike while the kids biked. I didn’t want to wear them out before we got to the brambles. I could have asked to borrow Oliver’s bike, but if he joined us, one of us would have to walk anyway.
I resigned myself to going without Oliver, but at the last minute he joined us.
A hush fell over the courtyard.
Lord, the man was cute.
“Smart get-up.” I gestured at the padded, plaid shirt tied around Oliver’s waist and his zip-front coveralls. Oliver, rendered in machine-sewn cursive, personalized his coveralls on a patch above the breast pocket.
