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With a sigh, I rounded the desk and plopped into his chair. I swiveled back and forth, then spun in a slow circle, surveying the fun little trinkets the boys had made over the years. Father’s Day, Christmas, Easter, his birthday. Tiny homemade cards and school goodies. My chest squeezed at the sight. He kept them and displayed them proudly.
I turned the chair back to the desk and halted entirely. My heart stuttered in my chest and my breath caught in my lungs.
Sitting proudly on his mostly empty desk was a framed picture of the two of us on our third date. We had gone to a pumpkin patch. I’d made him stop to take a picture in the rows full of all kinds of pumpkins in varying shades of orange and brown and yellow and green. Around us, fallen leaves just as colorful littered the ground. We each held a cup of apple cider in one hand and had our free arms wrapped around each other. I had on low-rise jeans—it was the early 2000s—and a white sweater with an American flag on it. My hair was pulled back from my face with a chunky headband. Liam looked the same, only with less facial hair. Almost like he hadn’t aged a minute. Instead of looking at the camera, we were fixated on each other. Our eyes were alight and our smiles were wide as we laughed at the mildly inappropriate comment the old woman taking our picture had made about Liam’s luscious hair.
I’d had the photo framed, and I’d given it to him as a graduation present the following spring. We didn’t know what our future held, but I didn’t want either of us to forget those days. And he’d kept it. He hadn’t forgotten, just like I’d hoped all those years ago. In fact, he seemed to keep all the important things.
Which left me confused and overwhelmed. Why, if these memories were all so important to him, if he’d made a point to keep reminders of those good days at the forefront, had he not fought for us when I finally made the decision to leave? He hadn’t even tried to stop me. Hadn’t followed. Hadn’t argued or lashed out. Not once did he yell or show up at my door and beg me to consider working things out. He’d simply let me be. Back then, I thought it was what I wanted. I thought space and isolation would heal my broken heart and crushed spirit. Over time, I supposed it did in some ways. But in others, I could see now that it had the opposite effect.
I did eventually heal. These days, I really was happy. But I’d stewed in bitterness and resentment for years, and rather than coming to terms with my past, I’d forced it down and tucked away the memories and emotions. I’d tried everything in my power to forget the pieces of me that were inspired by and caused by Liam. Any memory that included him got locked into this forbidden piece of my brain, and for a long time, I wanted them to stay there. But for the last few weeks, they’d been surfacing, one at a time. Memories and images constantly flitted through my mind, of hand holding and stolen kisses and secret glances.
I stood and wandered away from the desk. Then I shut off the lights and closed the door, wondering what I was supposed to do from here.
Iwoke up wondering what year it was.
My stomach was growling ferociously and my head felt like it had been run over by a semi-truck. A soft humming floated on the air, calming my aches and dulling the way my head pounded. That’s when I knew I had officially lost it. Either the nicest burglar in existence was invading my home, or I was so dehydrated that I was hearing things.
I fell out of bed—literally; my knees hit the hardwood—and with a groan, I hauled myself mostly upright and stumbled down the hall. I felt like I had been asleep for five days straight. No, I felt like I’d woken from hypersleep and had found myself in an alternate universe.
An alternate universe where Marigold was in my kitchen…painting. Marigold Wells was sitting on a barstool at the island in my kitchen, humming along to “Build Me Up Buttercup” and painting flowers on a small white canvas.
Gently tilting my head back, I whispered a thank-you to the man above, pressing my hands together in a prayer pose and shaking them for emphasis.
There was an angel in my kitchen.
I cleared my throat and tried to bite back the kind of smirk that always overtook me in her presence. But I was thrown off my game, so it probably looked like I was sucking on a lemon.
Marigold turned around, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Hey there, sleeping beauty. How you feeling?”
“What decade is it?” I croaked.
She snagged her phone from the granite countertop and lowered the volume of the music. Then she set her paintbrush in a cup of water and straightened. “Did I wake you up?”
“No, I didn’t hear you till I was already up. How are the boys? Have you heard from them?”
Yesterday, Nathan had called to invite us over to watch the Phillies game, and when I told him I couldn’t because I had a stomach bug, Calla, who had clearly been eavesdropping, dropped everything to pick the boys up. I’d tried to talk her out of it. They weren’t showing any symptoms, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be puking within hours, and I didn’t want to infect my sister and her fiancé too, but she insisted.
“Calla sent me pictures. She took them to Target after school to pick out new Lego sets. Then they went to that jump place, so it’s safe to say they’re having a good time.”
My knees wobbled a little, so I propped myself up against the counter. “They’re already out of school? How long did I sleep?”
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Nine hours. I actually got a little concerned after a while. I checked on you a few times to make sure you were breathing.”
Marigold blotted her paintbrush on a paper towel, then slid it back into the carrying case she’d brought.
I was mesmerized by her. Obviously, I was still coming out of my coma, but each move was rhythmic, smooth, like it was set to music I couldn’t hear. “You painted…here?”
She looked from her canvas to me, frowning. “Oh. I did. I didn’t think you’d mind. I went home after a while so I could grab a couple of things for the project. Little things I’d planned for our meetup. And once I finished, I just…didn’t want to stop.”
That was my favorite side of Marigold, the one so caught up in what she was doing that she didn’t have to think or second-guess. In those moments, she was purely herself.
I hummed and wandered to the coffee maker, sending up another thank-you to the big guy, because the pot was mostly full. I poured a mug and leaned against the island. For a quiet moment, I took in her painting. From this vantage point, the canvas was upside down, so I cocked my head to one side and squinted, trying to place the subject. When I finally figured it out, my heart lodged in my throat.
“Is that my back porch?”
It looked just like it. The deep stain I’d applied a few months back, the white bed swing hung with fisherman’s rope, the light-blue back door and blooming flowers from the window boxes. She’d painted marigolds in place of the zinnias. Like she had subtly added herself to the space. I wasn’t an expert in art, of any capacity, but Marigold had unbelievable talent. Talent that she’d tucked away long ago, when the boys were born, and I hadn’t seen since. Now, though, it was flourishing. She’d broken out her supplies to paint hippos and giraffes to make our kids happy, yet this was what lay beneath the silly characters and exaggerated colors. Art like this spoke to a person, reaching right into one’s soul and holding on tight. She had this way of conveying her love of it too. Like her passion was so strong it was impossible not to see it poured out into her work.
When I dragged my focus from the painting to her face, she was flushed. Pink freckled cheeks and parted lips.
