A memory of his grandfather flashed in his mind. They were sitting at the edge of the pond on the estate where Josh’s folks lived, and Harry was on the other side of him. The wind was blowing, and Harry had been holding his old floppy hat down with one hand.
“Grandpa, why am I like this?” he had asked.
“If God made everyone just alike, the world would be a boring place, now wouldn’t it?” Grandpa had answered.
“Accept who you are and be good at what you do. Now, if you’re going to finish the drawing of that duck, you’d better get busy,” Harry had said with a chuckle.
When he came around the bend, he could see Sophie painting and Emma sitting on the porch steps with a backpack beside her. When he was only a few feet away, Sophie waved with a paintbrush in her hands. Emma looked up and nodded.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said.
“Mornin’,” Emma and Sophie both said at the same time.
“Want a cup of coffee?” Sophie asked.
“No, I already had too much caffeine this morning, but thank you,” he said and then glanced over at Emma. “Are you ready?”
“I hope so,” Emma said with a shy smile. “Sophie expects me to be productive today, but I haven’t painted anything in years.” Emma stood up and slipped her arms through the straps of her backpack, fastened the hook in the front, and gave him a brief nod. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Not quite,” Josh said. “You need a hat.”
“He’s right. Take this one. It’s got a good wide brim.” Sophie jerked her straw hat off her head and handed it to Emma. “I’ve got another one in the house.”
“Thank you,” Emma said.
“Y’all have a good morning,” Sophie called out as they walked away.
Josh waved over his shoulder.
With her dark hair all done up in braids, Emma was a pretty woman, and when she smiled, her brown eyes sparkled. Josh had the urge to draw her in pen and ink with that twinkle in her eyes. If he could capture the sadness that surrounded her but still get the eyes just right, he would have a masterpiece for sure—one that he probably would never want to sell.
Neither of them said a word until they reached a copse of mesquite, where he removed his backpack. “I thought we’d set up right here. I’m almost finished with my project, but if I can see the eagles, it inspires me.”
Emma unfastened her backpack and laid it on the ground. “This is a great place.”
They brought out their folding stools with canvas seats and popped them open. Emma sat down, and her eyes darted from one flower to another as if she was trying to decide whether to really work that morning or just study the landscape.
Josh assembled a portable easel and got out bottles of ink and several pens. “Need help with anything?” he asked.
“No, I’m good. It’s just been years since I’ve had brushes in my hands. I don’t know whether to sketch first or just start painting on a canvas.” Her tone sounded downright bewildered.
“There’s no wrong way to start. You are the artist. It’s your work, and you can even toss it when you’re done if you don’t like it.” Josh dipped his pen in the ink and made a few strokes on the eagle’s wings.
Emma got a small stretched canvas from her backpack and then brought out a palette and several brushes. Her chest tightened up so badly that it ached. Visions of the cloud picture that she’d slashed chased through her mind. That moment had tangled together the fact that her mother was right about her being too weak to make her own decisions and the pain in her body from the rape.
Deep breaths, she reminded herself when she felt a panic attack approach.
“Are you all right?” Josh asked.
“I’m just trying”—she inhaled deeply—“to decide what to paint. Everything is so beautiful.”
“When you decide, you’ll dive right in.” He smiled.
I’m not ready, she thought.
Today just touching them and thinking about painting would be enough. She sat on her small stool for several minutes, staring at a pink bloom on a cactus, memorizing every detail.
Tomorrow I’ll paint, she promised herself. Today I’ll just study that flower.
Tomorrow never comes, the voice in her head said.
With trembling hands, she picked up the small tube of red paint and squirted a tiny bit onto the disposable palette. A soft breeze stirred the scent and sent it straight to her nose. At one time that smell had been like vitamins to her, too. She had hummed and even whistled while she worked, but today all it did was bring back the taste of fear as she had a flashback of slinging open the door to her apartment and inhaling the pungent aroma of oils.
“I have to do this,” she muttered. “I have to overcome all of it.”
She held her breath as she squirted a dollop of white paint beside the red and used a knife to stir the two together to make the color of the cactus flower. She couldn’t work without breathing, so she let the air out in a whoosh and forced herself to think about the flower.
“It’s like riding a bicycle, I would imagine,” Josh said. “It will all come back to you when you get started.”
“What if I’ve lost my touch?” she asked.
“No one says everything we do has to be perfect. Sometimes we all make something that’s pure crap. Just do whatever you want because it makes you happy,” he answered.
“Paint the lizard purple,” she muttered.
“What did you say?” Josh asked.
“Just thinking out loud,” Emma said as she looked at the sky and picked up the tube of blue paint, and then the green and the burnt umber.
A butterfly lit on the cactus and seemed to be staring right at her. If she could ever have wings to fly, she had to put the past behind her and pick up the brush. With trembling hands, she chose the smallest brush, dipped it in the pink paint, and outlined the cactus on the small canvas.
“What did you finally decide to work on?” Josh asked after the first hour.
“See that pink cactus right here?” She pointed and then turned what little she had managed to do around for him to see. “There was a butterfly on it, but I want to give the buyers something special, so I intend to hide the word hope in every painting.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” Josh said.
“I thought of it when that butterfly lit on the cactus. It was so delicate, and yet it has the strength to survive. Sophie rescued me, and y’all have taken me in. That gives me hope in humanity again, so I want to pay it forward in my art. Does that even make sense?” she asked.
“It’s as clear as a summer sky to me,” Josh said and continued working on his eagle picture.
His drawings and Harry’s generosity had sure enough given him wings to fly, so he understood Emma’s reasoning all too well. If a little butterfly could talk her into painting again, she might get to feeling better about herself.
“Thank you for understanding.” She made eye contact with him and smiled.
“Takes an artist to know an artist,” he said. “Those are Arty’s words, not mine. When I first bought the trailer park, it wasn’t with the thought of ever selling my drawings.”