Leo’s smile was bright and sincere. “Yes, Caroline. That’s exactly right. And I’m so glad you can look at these photos and understand that. Zander needs someone like that.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What?”
Leo nodded. “Zander almost never takes time off. He lives in a town that specializes in vacations, and kicking back, in having fun. His family owns a bar and a tour company and a petting zoo. We throw a crawfish boil every Friday. But where Autre is fun for everybody else, it's a responsibility for him. And the more people come to this town and the more people that we add to this family, the more responsibility he feels. Every time he takes even half a day to go fishing, I pray the whole time that nothing will happen while he's gone because he’d never forgive himself.”
“Oh, Leo…”
“But since you’ve been here in town, we’ve seen him smiling more than he has in years. We see him relaxing, slowing down a little. He never does that. He never takes time for himself. But this last week he’s actually smiling, laughing, and showing up late, and dawdling. It’s really nice to see.”
Caroline had no idea what to say. Her throat and her chest felt tight, but now her stomach twisted harder. But…she wanted that for Zander. She wanted him to be able to relax and take time to laugh and enjoy and to look around this town and look at these people around him and realize how wonderful it all was and not just worry all the time. She wanted him to look at these photos and have the feelings Leo had—memories of blue skies and warm sun and laughter instead of the loss and hard times that were to come. Hell, she wanted to see dozens more photos with Zander in them, smiling and laughing like he had as a kid. Before he knew about loss and grief and fear and worry.
"Well, that makes me feel really good, Leo. Thanks for telling me all of this."
"You think you might hang around a little bit?" Leo asked.
Could she hang out in Autre? A few days ago she would've said that was crazy. But now, she realized that she hadn't felt this much like herself in years. She nodded. "I just might."
"We might get to add some photos of you up on this wall."
And that felt like one of the biggest compliments anyone could've given her.
They returned to their painting and made amazing progress. An hour later when Kennedy and Juliet came in for a break from their work days, Leo and Caroline had finished the first coat and had painted the first two wooden picture frames. One sky blue and one bubblegum pink.
"What is going on in here?" Kennedy asked as she came from the front of the restaurant.
"We’re finally getting that wall painted," Ellie told her from behind the bar.
"Wow." Kennedy focused on Caroline. "Did you talk them into this?"
"No convincing required. She came up with a great idea and we jumped on it," Leo said.
"What idea?" Juliet asked.
Leo held the pink frame up to show Kennedy.
She took it from him, studying it. “You’re going to hang this back up on the wall in a pink frame?” The photo was of her, dressed in her usual head-to-toe black with heavy eye makeup and her hair dyed purple and styled in two long pigtails. She had black combat boots on and her tattoos and piercings were all on display. She had an arm around Leo’s neck in a hug and they were both laughing.
He nodded. "Pink is the color I think of when I think of you."
Kennedy arched a dark black brow. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. I know you try to be all bad, and tough, and scary, but you were the first granddaughter I got after a whole bunch of boys and the only one who lived here. For the first five years of your life all I bought you was pink stuff. You’re always tryin’ to be all dark and mysterious but you’ve always been my bright spot and so bright pink is how you make me feel."
Kennedy stared at her grandfather for a long moment and then suddenly burst into tears. She crossed to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and said, "You're crazy, and I love you."
He squeezed her. "Ditto."
She let him go, wiped her cheeks, sniffed, and looked at Caroline. "All these frames are going to be different colors?"
Caroline wasn't sure how the family was going to feel about this. Hopefully they wouldn’t think it was silly. She lifted a shoulder. "Yeah. We might have more than one that’s blue or orange or whatever, but we’ll pick different colors that fit each photo.”
Kennedy and Juliet looked over the photographs, nodding.
"That's really cool," Kennedy said. "Can we help paint?"
"You would help paint the frames?" Caroline asked, excited. "I think that would be perfect. The family really should be painting these frames and deciding what colors to use and helping put this all together. This is your wall."
Juliet nodded. "I agree." She pointed at Caroline's hands. "But after all this manual labor, you're gonna need a new manicure."
Caroline looked at her nails and tucked them under into a fist. "Oh, it's no big deal. I'm not used to actually working with my hands." She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "But it's good for me."
Juliet smiled. "I know exactly what you mean. And I would be honored if you’d let me redo your manicure when we’re done with all of this."
Caroline surprised. "Really? You’d do that?"
Kennedy rolled her eyes. "Juliet gives the best manicures. But don't let that sweet offer fool you. She is going to have her level and her measuring tape in here making sure that we put all of these photographs up perfectly. She will drive you crazy first."
Juliet laughed. But didn't deny it.
"Well, actually,” Caroline said, carefully, “the beauty of this is letting it be imperfect. This wall is like the rest of the bar. Which is like all of the people who come and go from this place. It’s a hodgepodge of different backgrounds and personality types and quirks. No one's perfect and it doesn't all match. But yet when it comes together in this bar, it all just fits."
Again she found herself with two people just staring at her for several seconds.
Then Kennedy started crying again, and Juliet came forward and enfolded her in a big hug. "That's beautiful, and perfect. And I'm going to call everyone and get them up here to start painting and you're absolutely right, I'm not even going to get my tape measure."
Caroline found herself a little choked up as well. But she felt better about this than she had about anything she'd done in a very, very long time.
It felt so good to be real. To talk and have people care about her opinion and listen. To influence someone and make a positive difference.
This was just a painted wall with some framed photographs…but it felt bigger than that.
And two hours later when the whole Landry clan had gathered and painted and looked at and talked about and laughed over a bunch of photos they hadn’t really paid attention to in a long time and said how cool this project was and the wall was all put together and looked really, really good…Caroline realized it was bigger than that. And she’d made it happen.
A man could only live without gumbo for so long.
Zander finally gave in and went to Ellie’s for dinner.