by Karis Walsh
One of Pam’s favorite spots, the tide pools created by the cluster of rocks captured such interesting sea life. Usually she brought a nature guide with her to force her mind to concentrate on identifying one thing at a time. This morning, however, she had forgotten her book at home. Instead of looking at each piece of the little ecosystem—naming and breaking down the characteristics of each creature in the shallow water—she had started to notice the interplay of elements, of light and shadow, in the microcosm in front of her.
Before she knew it, she was framing sections of the scene that could work as paintings. She’d walked around the formation until she found the right perspective, where the rising sun caught the seven-foot-tall hunk of basalt with a deep pool at its base. A cluster of starfish clung to the edge of the pool, illuminated as if by a spotlight as they seemed to reach for a wave that receded into the shadows and left them stranded. Pam’s hands had clenched as she’d tried to ignore her rush of desire to paint, but then she’d remembered Mel’s hand firmly gripping her own. She had returned home to take care of some suddenly pressing chores before she finally gave in and hauled out a canvas and her paints.
Pam had labored under the unexpected weight of the easel and the lightweight frame of her canvas. She’d had to move them three times before she was satisfied with the way the light hit the rough cloth. She’d pulled the kitchen table close so she had a place to set her brushes and paints. The effort of moving everything into place had been exhausting, and she hadn’t even started to paint. She’d wanted to scrap the project and sit down with a drink, but she had come too far to stop. The image of the rock had pounded too insistently in her head, trying to get out.
Resigned, she dropped her box of brushes on the table with a bang loud enough to make Piper raise her head. She settled down again as Pam quieted her movements, opening the box and taking her brushes out one by one. She feathered each against her hand, the bristles pliable and soft on her palm. She must have cleaned them thoroughly after her last bout of painting—the seascape Mel bought—but the act was so ingrained, so automatic, she couldn’t remember doing it. She took her time arranging the brushes in rows, their ends perfectly even, before she started to unpack her paints.
She opened the first tube and closed her eyes as the viscous, smudgy smell of the oils hit her nose. No turning back now. Even stronger than any visual cue, the scent of her art connected her to the first drawings she had made as a child. Waxy crayons, chalky pastels, cheap sets of watercolors. Sometimes she could ignore the landscapes, the faces, the images that inspired her. But once snared by the smell of the paint, she couldn’t stop the rest of the painting from pouring out.
Pam took a deep breath and smeared a line of black paint on the canvas, outlining the jagged silhouette of the back side of the large rock. She was surprised her hand didn’t shake as she sketched the dark outline since her willingness to return to painting for this woman was so frightening.
Of course she found Mel beautiful—there was nothing unusual about that. She could admire beautiful women. Sleep with them.
Even take care of chores or projects for them, often against her better judgment. But draw for them? Not even a sketch on a bar napkin. Agreeing to paint for Mel, opening herself to friendship and connection, was dangerous. For years, she had survived by avoiding close relationships, ignoring any attraction that might lead to something deeper than a one-night stand. Tourists and itinerant visitors to her small seaside town were fine, offering sex with no strings or commitment, but Mel seemed determined to stay.
Even though Pam would normally bet her life savings that a new entrepreneur hoping to open and run a successful bed-and-breakfast would fail as so many had before, there was something about Mel that made her hesitate. If anyone had a chance to fulfill her dream and build an inn that would be a haven to tourists, it would be Mel. She seemed to represent family and permanence, sanctuary and home—myths that Pam had foolishly fallen for long ago.
The memory of what she had lost, the very things Mel was fighting to create, hit her with such force. In the belly, in the heart, in her mind, everywhere she was most vulnerable and most susceptible to the pain. She wanted to smash her canvas, snap the brushes in half, throw her tubes of paint against the wall. Destroy, not create. She had trusted in forever only to have it torn away. She couldn’t allow it to happen again, regardless of how tempting Mel could be. All Pam had to do was deliver her promised paintings—no matter how painful it was to finish them—and get Mel out of her life.
The colors Pam slashed across the canvas were dark and shadowy.
Black for the basalt, with a hint of red flame from its volcanic past.
Deep purples, blues, and greens for the anemones that remained in place and mocked the starfish as they strove to save themselves. Stark blue-black mussels and white barnacles that clung to the rock. The textures were thick as she layered coats of paint on the canvas. But when she moved to the ocean’s waves, her colors softened, her paint lightened into teal and aqua, with a whitish foam that marked the edge of the surf. She added a glint of sunlight on the water and allowed it to illuminate several tiny fish in the tide pool, some fronds of seaweed that softened the harsh edges of the rocks, and a tiny waterfall where the ocean’s waves still drained into the pool.
Once she started to paint, her brain and hands seemed to move automatically, translating the image in her mind into a series of strokes and hues until the first stage of the painting was finished. She didn’t even stop to consult the hastily made sketch she had drawn when she returned from her walk—on her kitchen counter since no paper had been available. It seemed as if she blinked three hours after that first brushstroke, waking out of a trance, and stepped back from the almost-complete picture. She had captured the scene, caught the starfish in their dying moment. Nothing left to do but add the fractured, polished mosaic of sea glass. Her first thought was that she had somehow painted more optimism into the image than she had expected. Where she had seen only hopeless, helpless starfish, there was somehow a sense of reaching, striving for a salvation that seemed possible.
But as the hypnotic effect of creation gradually evaporated, the image that was never far from her mind returned full force. She somehow transposed a vision of the child she had loved—the boy her partner had taken from her—onto the painting. She suddenly could see her son, who had been lost to her for so many years, kneeling next to the pool and reaching toward the starfish. The brief respite from despair was over, the glorious amnesia brought on by concentration and immersion was gone. Finishing a painting was even more painful than beginning as Pam’s mind returned to the present, and a rush of grief, held at bay for a brief time, returned in force.
Piper had left her bed to sit by the back door, and she whined softly, asking to be let outside. Pam grabbed a box off the kitchen table and followed her dog into the small backyard. She sat in a weathered Adirondack chair and sifted through the box’s contents while Piper wandered around the tiny patch of lawn. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Mel that sea glass was getting harder to find, but she hadn’t let on how much she had collected over the years since she had started coming to the ocean with her grandparents. She sorted through the glass until she had a good-sized pile of red tones, from pale pinks to rich burgundies, to use on the starfish bodies. She added some lavender-colored glass as an accent and then called Piper inside for dinner. She poured some kibble in a bowl for her dog and a few fingers of tequila in a glass for herself. She hesitated and then poured a little more. Pam sat on the couch with her drink and turned on the television, ignoring the painting she had turned to face the wall so she wouldn’t have to see it.
❖
Pam called Mel a few days later to tell her the starfish painting, the first of her commissioned pieces, was completed. She felt a stab of disappointment when the call went to voice mail. She hung up without leaving a message. Even though the process had been difficult, now that her mosaic was finished she wanted to share it wi
th Mel. Because she was relieved to be finished with a painting. Exhausted and relieved and ready to have it out of her house. And maybe because she wanted to see the painting through Mel’s eyes, to replay the August afternoon when she had found Mel in her gallery, standing in front of the seascape. To use Mel as a buffer between her and her art, a filter so she could maybe bear to look at it.
She picked up the phone and dialed again, waiting through Mel’s businesslike message.
“Hey, Mel, this is Pam. From the gallery.” Brilliant. Like Mel knew at least six different Pams in Cannon Beach. Be cool. “I finished one of your mosaics.”
Was Mel on a date? Not an unreasonable explanation for her absence on a Friday night. And it wasn’t like Mel would have trouble finding someone…Pam’s silence had stretched a little too long. “So, um, give me a call when you want me to bring it over. Or you can come get it. Whatever.”
Pam gave her address and mercifully put the call out of its misery.
Yes, very cool. She had no reason to be so tongue-tied. Or to care what—or whom—Mel was doing on her weekend. Mel’s social life was none of her concern, and the only reason she called again a few hours later was because she wanted to get the painting off her hands and Mel’s check into her account. And that was the same reason she drove by Mel’s inn the next day, only to find the big house dark and empty, no blue Honda in the driveway.
Pam slowly drove home along the winding road that edged the ocean and collected Piper for a walk on the beach. The brief glimmer of satisfaction she had felt when she’d finished the starfish painting disappeared as she realized Mel might have given up on her business and left town. She had expected it to happen, but her disappointment caught her by surprise. No matter, she decided. Tia would be glad to have the painting in her upcoming art walk, and life in Cannon Beach would go on as usual, minus yet another hopeful entrepreneur. Pam pulled her jacket tighter as the wind increased. It was blowing from the south, pushing dark clouds across the sky. Pam whistled for Piper and turned back toward her house, hoping to get home before the approaching storm.
Chapter Six
Mel jumped to her feet with the rest of the crowd as Danny rushed eight yards for a touchdown. She hadn’t seen him since she’d moved to Cannon Beach. She had initially been upset that she didn’t have a chance to talk to him the moment she got back to Salem, but now she was relieved to have the extra time to get herself together.
Even the sight of him in his helmet and uniform, barely recognizable as her son among his teammates, triggered an unanticipated range of emotions. Happiness, guilt, doubt. She had expected to feel them, just not all at once, clamoring for her attention and threatening to steal her self-control. Mel settled back onto the bleachers when Danny left the field with the offense. She moved as one with the other fans, blending in with the sea of green on the home team’s side of the stadium, but she felt like an outsider. At the game, in her former city, as she brushed against her old life. She felt out of sync, different, in the very place she had called home for so many years.
Although she hadn’t spoken to Danny yet, she had managed to run into Richard and his fiancée, Lesley, earlier at the concession stand. All very polite, very grown-up. Mel had walked away after the few minutes of casual chitchat with an irrational feeling of anger. And regret.
Regret. She hated the word. It implied poor choices, no second chances, sadness. In some ways, she regretted not leaving her marriage sooner. Starting over when Danny was a child, when she was younger. When she might have had the chance to build a new family like Richard had done.
But as she sat in the stands—an island of turmoil and second-guessing amidst the cheering fans—she rejected each of the negative implications of her regret one by one. She hadn’t made poor choices.
She had considered what was best for Danny at every crossroads in her adult life. Yes, she might have missed her second chance at romance and true love, but she had a new opportunity, a new life waiting for her in Cannon Beach. And of course she had moments of sadness and loneliness and doubt when she was alone in her decrepit inn, but she also had pride and accomplishment and the happiness that came with freedom. She’d reveled in the first tastes of those emotions, and they’d whetted her appetite for more.
No, Mel didn’t want to return to her old life. Not a chance. But she envied the ease with which Lesley had taken her place. Mel’s own transition hadn’t been simple. She had been thrust into her new life with all the pain and agony she remembered from childbirth. But she was surviving. Growing stronger. Mel filed out of the stands with the rest of the crowd and went in search of Danny. Circumstances had changed, but now she’d be able to be a role model for the kind of life she wanted him to have from the start, one of honesty and hard work and self-determination.
She found Danny on the sidelines, surrounded by his friends, and she waved with what she hoped was a casual smile when he looked up and noticed her. She had communicated with him every day since she’d left, either by phone or e-mail, but seeing him in person overwhelmed her. As a teenager, he was so easily embarrassed by any show of parental affection, so she was determined to keep her cool.
But Danny detached himself from the crowd of players and pushed his way through the stream of spectators, grabbing her in a big hug as soon as he was close.
“I missed you,” she whispered as she gave him a squeeze before they stepped apart.
“Me, too, Mom,” he said, not looking directly at her as he leaned against the bleachers, his helmet tucked under an arm.
“Great game,” she said, changing to a less personal subject.
She was surprised to see her own emotions echoed on Danny’s face.
She brushed her hand over her eyes. Just a few tears, but she didn’t mind. She’d earned them. “Over a hundred yards rushing was pretty impressive.”
“Thanks,” he said. He shrugged and gave the shy grin he usually wore when his accomplishments were the topic of conversation.
“Their team sucks, but the stats still look good on my record. Are you ready to go to dinner? I’m starving.”
Mel laughed as he ran off to get his gym bag. At least some things never changed. The normalcy of picking up her son after his game, taking him to dinner, just being his mother seemed magnified somehow, turned into something precious because it was the one constant in her sea of change. The one truth that had always been with her, that she would fight to protect.
“How’s the old house?” Danny asked when he returned and they started walking toward the parking lot. Mel had texted him with regular updates and—responding to his enthusiastic answers and excited to get him involved in the project—had started asking his opinion about color swatches and wood stains. He had sent back encouragement, endless questions, and suggestions for paint colors.
Mel was grateful for the technology because she felt closer to him than she had when they’d lived in the same house.
She had been a stranger there, and he had been a typical teenager, in his room wearing headphones, at practice or school, off with his friends. They had long since given up on family meals, and Mel had strict rules against texting at the table, but since she’d moved they had fallen into the habit of having dinner together over the phone. Mel would describe her day of renovations, and Danny actually talked about school, his friends, his goals. Somehow communicating through those shorthand messages opened up a new relationship for them. Indirect and brief, but real. Mel knew more about what was going on in Danny’s life and in his mind than she had when he’d been sitting in the next room.
“Coming along,” Mel said, dredging up the most enthusiastic response she could find. “I finished laying the laminate flooring in the bedrooms yesterday.”
“You did that by yourself?” Danny asked, sounding surprised.
Mel nodded. She was surprised, too, but she had successfully completed the intimidating project with only minor setbacks, thanks to three trips to visit Walter. And thanks to the personal motto, inspired
by two very costly mistakes, “Measure ten times, cut once.”
“Cool,” Danny said. “Wish I could have helped. What’ll we be doing when I come see you next weekend?”
“I’m planning to paint downstairs this week, so there’ll be plenty more flooring to keep us busy over the weekend,” Mel said, keeping her voice casual. She saw the pride in Danny’s eyes. Usually, he spent most of his free time off with friends or playing sports, and she couldn’t remember the last time he had voluntarily offered to spend time with her. She had expected him to either bring a friend when he came to visit or hang out at the Cannon Beach rec center with the local teens. The thought of working side by side with her son made the massive job of renovating the inn suddenly seem a little less like labor and more like fun.
“Great, just show me what to do and I’ll help all I can,” Danny said, surprising Mel first by his eagerness and then by giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I will.” Mel opened her trunk so Danny could toss his bag in. She sent a silent thank you to the old house, to her aching back and knees, to her mountain of debt. Whether or not she managed to turn the inn into a thriving business, she had succeeded in something even more important. She had moved to the ocean to build a home and a new life for herself and her son. The thought of sharing the process with him gave her a sense of optimism she hadn’t felt since she had forced a reluctant Pam to paint for her. She had spent her life acquiescing to everyone else’s choices and needs. Now she was finally making her own path and discovering other people were willing to join her. For a brief moment she didn’t feel so alone.
“Golden Moon for dinner?” she asked as they climbed in the salt-stained Honda. “There isn’t a single good Chinese restaurant in Cannon Beach.”
❖
Mel finally pulled into her driveway and grabbed her overnight bag off the backseat. She ran to the front door and slammed herself inside with a sigh of relief. Her shoulders ached from the effort of driving through the storm on poorly lit roads, and her heart ached after saying good-bye to Danny again. She had felt certain about her decisions while talking to Danny, confident as she explained her work on the house. But driving through the dark night and returning to the dark house made her question this move yet again. Was it worth all the effort for this lonely life?
