by Karis Walsh
But Mel was forcing her to give more than she had. She said Pam was afraid, and she might have been right. Mel had been brave enough to survive when her world shattered, to rebuild her life from scratch.
Pam was too broken to match Mel’s courage. She could get through, day by day, but only if she protected herself from the chance of being hurt again.
❖
Mel pushed against the wind’s current as she made her way back to the inn. She had stopped just short of telling Pam she loved her, but she knew what she felt. She should be sad, brokenhearted, because Pam wouldn’t accept her love, but instead she only knew a sense of lightness, as if the breeze might pick her up and fly her like a kite. She had stood up for love, for what she wanted and deserved, and somehow that mattered even more than having her feelings reciprocated.
Each receding wave seemed to erode the wall of regrets she had built around her. Regrets over how she had lived her life. The choices she had made. She was finally ready to move forward and stop reliving the past. She had hoped Pam would choose to join her, but she wasn’t ready. Mel was finished with changing herself to meet other people’s needs. Her love wouldn’t ever go away, but eventually it would ease. Until then, until she found someone who was willing to accept and support the person she truly was, she would be fine alone.
With her inn, with Danny, with her new friends and community.
❖
Pam arranged her brushes in an orderly row, from slender ones with fine-tipped hairs to a couple of thickly bristled ones for background work. She spent another half hour searching through boxes for a fan-shaped paintbrush to add to the lineup. Finally, she faced the canvas she had set up in the entryway to her home, the only place where she could find the clear morning light she needed.
Until Mel’s starfish painting, Pam had kept her house free of art.
Separate from any creative impulse she might have. She had painted her mosaics in the gallery, locked alone in her office as if she were hiding a dirty secret. Then Mel had asked her to paint, and she had needed to capture the starfish immediately, no time to drive into town and shut herself away. And she had gone on to paint in Mel’s house, in the studio with Mel and Danny there to see her. Coming to life, coming out of hiding.
Even her house was showing signs of emerging from a long hibernation. Paints and brushes were near at hand, covering her tables and countertops and no longer stuffed in boxes, in closets. She had even hung a few paintings she had purchased over the years and stored in her office. By other artists. Each step had been difficult, but it had brought light and color back to her empty walls. She had been patient with the small successes, nurturing her budding creativity as if it were a frail child. But now she was ready to paint something of her own, hang it on her wall, live with it.
She had brought out the half-finished painting yesterday, after her talk with Mel. Hiding in the back of her closet for years, moving with her from home to home but never completed or displayed on a wall.
She had taken it out as a reminder of how much pain relationships caused. As a warning not to give in to her foolish heart and go running back to Mel. Pam brushed her fingers over Kevin’s face. She had started the portrait only a few days before Diane left. She had never wanted to finish it. Until now.
Pam started with the background—the park near their house, where Kevin loved to play. The swings and slide, the grass and sandboxes. She worked quickly, filling in details she had left out during the early stages of painting. Eight years later, and she was still sore inside. Falling in love, being a family, losing her family had been too much to take. She couldn’t risk having it happen again. She had no choice but to stay here alone. To go back to occasional one-night stands with women who were only passing through town. To suffer the longing every time she’d go into their small town and run into Mel, and Danny, and the inevitable woman who wouldn’t be stupid enough to let Mel get away.
Pam wanted to be that woman, and she was well aware of the immediate advantages of accepting Mel’s offer of a relationship, a partnership. But how would she survive when it inevitably ended?
After just a couple of outings, a few conversations with Danny, Pam had let her guard down long enough to care. And Mel. A handful of nights together had only left Pam wanting more. Had made her fall in love. Pam touched up the details of Kevin’s face in the picture. His curly hair, the pink of his toddler cheekbones. She had vowed to avoid love forever. Mel had somehow made her lose sight of her promise and the reasons behind it.
But Mel wasn’t Diane. Diane had been jealous of her art. Painting had defined Pam—and it was slowly starting to again—and she had felt constrained by the constant need to hide her talent, downplay the joy and pain of creating, stifle those unexpected urges to sketch and capture moments on paper. But Mel had encouraged and supported her, had eased her transitions between the worlds she created and the one she lived in.
Because Mel understood what it meant to give up part of your soul to please another person. Pam paused and braced her left hand against the wall. Why hadn’t she seen it before? How different Mel was from Diane. How different she would be in a relationship. Pam had been so wrapped up in protecting herself against Mel and what she would take from Pam if she left. Pam hadn’t given Mel enough credit, hadn’t fully appreciated what she’d bring to her.
Mel insisted she’d never lose herself in a relationship again, never lose sight of her needs, her dreams, her desires. And Pam knew she’d never want her partner, her lover to suffer those losses. Mel would offer support because she had lived without it. She’d cherish and encourage her partner’s dreams because her own had withered for so long. She would share without forcing compromise, love without demanding change. She had lost her identity in her marriage and had fought bravely to rediscover it. She was strong and confident because she’d earned it. She had climbed out of her dark place on her own, not by stepping over Pam or anyone else. Instead, she had reached out and pulled Pam along with her.
Unlike Diane. Who had built up her own shaky self-confidence by expecting Pam to downplay her talent, hide it. Pam had tried to do whatever it took to keep her happy, to stay in Kevin’s life. Even after Diane left, Pam had continued to deny her art, had almost stopped painting completely. As if punishing herself for failing Kevin. She hated being separated from him, hurt so deep inside she wanted to crawl out of her skin sometimes. But how long would she have survived with Diane? Starving her soul?
Pam stopped painting and stared at the canvas. She picked up a different brush and leaned close, adding fine lines to the portrait.
Coppery hair slightly mussed so it looked natural. Delicate strands, wispy and out of place, because he loved to run and play and explore.
She switched brushes again, swirling a flat one through the oils on her palette, darkening the flesh tones for the shaded areas of Kevin’s neck, his chin, alongside his freckled nose. To give his face depth.
Her hand was smudged with oils, her short fingernails green like the grass she’d been painting. She felt the brush handles, so comfortable to hold. Wood. Smooth and fat, or delicate and narrow.
But as she worked, she felt connected through the brushes to the humid summer day at the park. Sand sifting through her fingers. The metal slide so hot to touch. Kevin’s small hand tight in hers as they stood in line to get ice cream. The air filled with the sweet scent of cottonwoods and vanilla-infused waffle cones. She breathed deeply.
The narrow entryway was heavy with the smell of linseed oil. For years, she had barely survived on the empty air in her sterile house.
Now the scent of paint, of living, nourished her. But she craved other smells, too. Roses and citrus and freshly baked scones. Cinnamon and apples and the verbena she’d planted next to Mel’s back door.
On a flash of inspiration, Pam tossed aside her small brush and chose a wider, fatter one. She squeezed some paint onto her palette and mixed rapidly, impatiently rummaging through her tubes in search of the right shade of
red to add to the mix. Once she was satisfied with the color, she made broad strokes across the canvas and transformed Kevin’s pale yellow shirt into a bright orange one he had loved. The sweeping strokes eased some of her tension. The vivid color brought back a series of memories. She had focused so often on the moment of loss and had too often forgotten the three years of happiness he had brought to her life.
Pam finished with Kevin’s eyes, adding depth and brightness, blinking tears out of her own eyes when she stood back at last. A little paint on canvas, a few details and brushstrokes, and she had managed to put some of the pain of losing Kevin behind her while allowing the good memories to resurface. Pam put down her brush and palette. She had made a start on dealing with the past. Maybe it was time to look forward to the future.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pam carried a blank canvas out of the laundry room and found Piper curled in a ball under the easel she had set up next to the dining-room table. She bent down to scratch her dog’s ears before she set the canvas in place. Brushes arranged in a neat row, trays filled with scrunched tubes of paint lined up, a clean palette. She had everything she needed. Except an idea.
She stared at the white canvas and let her focus soften. A memory of painting the starfish surfaced. Her first commission piece for Mel, and an emotional battle to paint. Back then, the unpainted canvas had seemed threatening, a temporary respite in oblivion before the painting was finished and she was jolted back to the pain of real life. A foolish illusion of beauty and permanence, when all Pam had known was abandonment and grief. Now the pain of losing her son was like the distant roar of the ocean waves instead of a battering storm.
Always with her, in the background of her mind, it no longer eclipsed the joy of having been his mother for a few short years. His portrait hung on the wall near her, out of hiding. And someday, maybe, she would try to mend her relationship with Diane enough so she could see him again. But today the blank canvas was full of possibilities, of promise for the future.
When she’d painted portraits, she’d always had a model.
Landscapes and seascapes had been places she had seen, noticed, and felt compelled to paint. She’d always been driven by what she’d seen. Only after she had finished a painting would she recognize the emotions behind the composition, so she’d never minded when people read her paintings in a different way than she did. All that had mattered was getting the image out of her head and onto the canvas.
But now, for the first time, Pam wanted to paint emotion on purpose. Now she was trying to choose the subject to fit the message she wanted to express. And, more than anything, it mattered to her that Mel would be able to see the love Pam wanted to convey. She ran through her memories, searching for something to paint. The inn in its various stages of disrepair and renovation. The studio where Pam had sketched her garden design for Mel and Danny, where she had given her first art lesson, and where she hoped to paint for Mel and her guests. Or Mel, herself. Priming walls, laying floors, creating the geometric pattern of the garden path. Sitting on the steps leading to the beach with her arms wrapped around her knees and her eyes looking back at her past even as she stared at the ocean.
Pam’s mind came to rest on the unsuccessful whale-watching trip in the park. She had felt like part of the family with Mel and Danny. It had scared her then, but now she could only hope for more opportunities like it. For a lifetime of them. She remembered Danny’s hesitant questioning, his awkward approval of Pam as a partner for his mom. She thought of the kiss she and Mel had stolen, the night they had spent together. Even now, her body responded to just the memory of Mel between her legs, as if she were being physically touched. Pam had tried to fight against the sense of family and love she’d experienced that day. But now she was ready to embrace it, to ask for more. She just couldn’t find a picture, an image to pull out of the memory and capture on canvas.
Maybe because she didn’t want to recapture the day itself. Pam quickly plucked a few tubes of paint off the trays and squeezed color onto her palette. She wanted to paint a future that hadn’t happened yet, a memory she and Mel and Danny had yet to make. She hurried to draw a gray whale breaching, breaking free from the ocean for one brief moment of weightless joy. She sketched the shape, the motion, before the vision disappeared. Once she had caught the broad outlines of the painting, her sense of urgency eased and she slowed down, even stopping to look up a photo in one of her nature guides to check the accuracy of her whale’s flippers. She didn’t need to hurry, didn’t need to rush through the process or be afraid of the finishing point.
Pam layered more paint over her initial outline. She softened and arced the lines of the rectangles and triangles she had thrown on the canvas to give shape to the whale. She used a heavy hand for the ocean, thick paint to depict the weight and pull of the sea. She gave energy to the twisting, arching movement of the whale by lightening her touch when she painted the spray of droplets surrounding the creature. The motion was Mel bursting out of the secretive, unfulfilling life she had led and into an expressive, public, challenging new career.
Through her brush, Pam could feel the courage it must have taken for Mel to break free and start over. But more than bravery, Mel had shown a deep kindness, an expansive desire to offer to other people the same freedom she sought for herself. Pam had watched the first guests at the Sea Glass Inn find an oasis of acceptance in a world that didn’t always offer it. And Pam believed Mel would beat the odds and make her inn a success. She would continue to provide a haven for many more people in the future. And Pam wanted to be part of it.
Swirling winter clouds mirrored the ocean waves. Pam stepped back to check her work, to make sure the heaviness of the sea and sky didn’t overwhelm the whale’s breach but, instead, emphasized its power. She felt the same power moving through her as she painted her feelings for Mel. Her break from the past hadn’t been as sudden as Mel’s. But her hope, her happiness, were as complete. She had healed slowly and quietly. As she’d silently sanded the floorboards in Mel’s dining room after she’d painted her storm. As she’d dug yards of sod out of the backyard. As she’d licked a lazy trail of lime juice off Mel’s neck…
Mel—and Danny—had given her the full feeling of being part of a family again. But Mel gave her the same encouragement and respect she offered her guests, without any of the jealousy and manipulation Pam had known with Diane. Mel had made sacrifices for her son, and she obviously wanted him around as often as possible, but Pam knew she had never tried to discourage him from staying in Salem with his dad. Mel’s generosity of spirit, her ability to empathize with other people, gave Pam the courage she needed to make the final break from the pull of her past and trust someone again. If Mel would take her back. If she could understand the message Pam was trying to paint.
Pam sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the painting, next to Piper. She idly rubbed her dog’s belly with one hand while she sifted her other through the box of sea glass. She hadn’t searched for new glass for years, and she let her thoughts wander to isolated beaches she could visit with Mel. She concentrated on smaller pieces of glass for the drops of water around the whale. Mostly whites and blues to match the ocean, but also some multicolored chips of glass that would catch the light and add interest to the neutral tones in the painting.
Brown for Piper, green and yellow for Danny’s school colors. A coppery-gold glass so a small part of Kevin would forever be in the painting. And peach and sea-foam green for Mel, because those colors reminded Pam of walking into the inn and finding Mel sitting in a patch of sunlight, caught between an ending and a beginning.
Pam carefully cleaned her brushes and palette and stowed all her supplies in the laundry room. She was torn between the desire to rush over to Mel’s and show her the partially completed painting and the self-protective need to avoid the rejection she might face. The whale wasn’t complete without its mosaic of glass shards, and Pam wouldn’t take it to Mel until she had given the painting its full meaning. Sh
e grabbed her heavy coat and opened the back door for Piper. A walk on the beach would keep her mind off her upcoming attempt to talk to Mel. Unless, of course, her walk took her past the Sea Glass Inn.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mel crawled along the studio floor on her hands and knees, dragging the pan of latex paint and glaze with her. A row of freshly sanded cabinet doors were lined up on a drop cloth. She had painted them a bright blue, and now she applied an off-white color wash in long strokes. She liked the striped pattern the stiff bristles made on the base coat, but she had to be careful to keep her brushstrokes long and even. She sang a song as she worked, something from a CD Danny had played countless times on his last visit. She didn’t know the group or most of the lyrics, but she couldn’t shake the song from her head.
“Those aren’t the right words.”
Mel started at the sound of Pam’s voice. She glanced over to where she leaned in the doorway and then looked back at the door she had been painting. An arc of glazed drops cut across its surface.
“You made me mess up,” Mel said, reapplying the wash before the drops could dry. She had been hoping to see Pam. Last night, she had even considered going to Pam’s house and taking back her assertive speech, promising she’d be willing to just have sex with no strings. Her weakness where Pam was concerned annoyed her, and she heard it in her voice. Plus, she had imagined several scenarios bringing them back together, but in none of them was she singing loudly and out of tune with old sweatpants on and blue paint in her hair. She hoped her irritation at Pam’s unexpected arrival would help her keep a distance and keep control.
“Sorry,” Pam said, stepping into the studio. “Can I help? Not that I think you need…I was just offering, but…”
