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“When I am, Laura will call you.”

The words catch me. Not because I mind making the call, but because Kell says it as though the arrangement is obvious.

Laura will handle that.

So much of Kell’s life still runs through me simply because there are things he hasn’t learned how to do yet. Read a business card. Save a number he can’t identify on the screen. Know which questions to ask when he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

I’ve wanted that dependence to shrink from the beginning. I just hadn’t expected every step in that direction to hurt a little.

For now, I close my fingers around Meredith’s card and slip it into my purse. By the time she leaves, most of the other people have wandered away too. I take the card back out and pull out Kell’s phone.

“Give me a second.”

I add Meredith’s number to his contacts, then take a photo of his painting and use it as her picture. When I hand the phone back, the canvas fills the little circle beside her name.

Kell studies it. “That’s my painting.”

“So you’ll know who it is even if you can’t read the name yet.”

He touches the picture. “Meredith.”

“Meredith.”

“Then I can call her.”

“Yes.”

He looks at the phone for another second before slipping it into his pocket.

Kell returns to the canvas, but this time he doesn’t immediately reach for the wedge.

“What?”

“She wants it.”

“Yes.”

His attention stays on the painting. “She doesn’t know me.”

“No.”

“She knows I’m a Wicker Man.”

“I’m pretty sure everybody in the park figured that part out.”

He glances at me. “That isn’t why she wants it.”

“No. It isn’t.”

For a few seconds, he simply stands there looking at the thing he made.

I leave the picnic table and cross the grass to him. “Kell, you understand what just happened, right?”

“She wants to buy it when it’s finished.”

“Yes.”

“I understand.”