Page 72 of Sparking Sara

Oliver puts his arm around her. “You’re an amazing artist who can command any price for a painting and people will pay it. Gladly.”

“Where is it?” she asks. “My studio.”

Sara hardly pays notice to the rest of the apartment as we make our way to the back room. She walks through the door and stops quickly, her hand coming to her mouth to cover a sob.

“Oh, my God, the door.”

“Door?” Donovan asks.

She walks over to the door that’s been put on its side on top of two decorative saw horses. It’s being used as a table for her paints. She runs her hand along the edge. “It was my parents’ front door from the house I grew up in. When they died, it’s the only thing I wanted from my childhood home other than all the photo albums.”

She picks up one of the paint brushes and runs the bristles across the palm of her hand. “My father had an old door that he used as a workbench in our garage. When I was little, I used to help him with his woodworking projects. I told him that one day when I grew up, I was going to be a famous painter and I would have a door in my garage just like he did. And it would hold my paints. The last I remember of the door is having my Aunt Maria, Joelle’s mom, store it at her house for me after my parents died. I can’t believe I actually used it.”

“What a lovely story,” Oliver says, walking up behind her and rubbing her shoulders. “How proud your parents would have been.”

Sara’s eyes find mine. “I wish you could have met them,” she says.

“I wish I could have met them too, luv,” Oliver says.

Sara closes her eyes and she nods. Then she explores the paintings in the room. She stops and studies one that is only partially painted. She squints her eyes. “Are those … French fries?”

I look at the pictures that are attached to the wall just behind the easel. “I know the couple in the picture. That’s Baylor and Gavin McBride. You’re doing a painting for them.”

“People pay me to make paintings with French fries?”

Oliver laughs. “You paint people’s memories, darling.”

She cocks her head and furrows her brow. “I what?”

Oliver spends the next few minutes explaining her paintings. Sara seems fascinated. She looks like she does when I read her book to her. And I remember what she said the other day about her life being like a story that other people tell her.

She smiles at him. “Thanks, Oliver.”

He grabs her hand. “Ollie,” he says. “You always call me Ollie.”

“Okay, Ollie.”

She smiles a second time, and I wonder if she’s beginning to accept her situation.

But the smile fades when Oliver leads us back into the main room. Sara wanders around, picking things up and studying them. She looks through kitchen cabinets. She even looks in the refrigerator. Then she goes into the bedroom.

She waves us along with her, almost like she’s scared to dive into her past without people there to rescue her should she need it.

She sits on the side of the bed, running a hand over the duvet.

Oliver sits down next to her. “Our favorite place,” he says, patting the bed.

Sara flashes him an uncomfortable smile. “I’ll bet,” she says, playing along.

“Don’t worry, hun. I won’t push you. I’ll even take the sofa after you come home if you like. Anything for you.”

She looks relieved and more at ease after his offer.

She leans over and opens the drawers of her side table. Her breath catches when she sees something in the lower drawer. She reaches in and pulls out a handful of pregnancy tests.

“Oh, my God. Oliver … uh, Ollie—were we trying to have a baby?”

Oliver laughs, almost doubling over on the bed. “Sara Francis—a mum? Not a chance. You hate kids. You call them all brats. But we did have a scare a few months ago. You went out and bought ten tests just to be sure. After the fourth one was negative, I told you to stash the rest.”

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