Page 50 of Drifting Hearts
“There’s new pencils in the bag. Erasers too. I had extra.”
Michael’s gaze flicked up to mine before darting away. His pencil hovered over his page, then he set it down and grabbed the bag off the floor. The zipper rasped as it slid open and a small sound puffed out of him. He looked at me, then back at the bag, then at me again.
“I promise it’s okay for you to have these.”
Michael pulled out the new sketchbook like it was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. The pencils came next and he furrowed his brow at the sight of the tin they came in.
“They’re artist’s pencils. Each one is numbered and, depending on the number, the pencil will draw darker or lighter.”
Michael set the box of pencils down on the table and reached intothe bottom of the bag. Out of everything, it was the erasers that made him smile. He looked at me and shoved the hair out of his face with one hand, clutching the erasers in the other. He’d been drawing with regular pencils and those erasers weren’t big enough to last very long. He probably wore them down in no time.
Michael’s hot chocolate got cold and the cookie he’d started eating sat there half gone, leaving crumbs on the table, but Michael was a million miles away in his own world. He kept shoving the hair out of his face, and after the fourth time, he looked up at me.
“You draw?”
I nodded. Because anything else felt like a lie. “I used to draw all the time.”
“Can you draw Iron Man?”
“I used to be able to.”
“Can you show me?” Michael held out a pencil and waited for me to take it.
I couldn’t say yes.
I couldn’t say no.
Taking the pencil, I motioned to the chair that was next to him. “Can I sit there? It would be easier to show you. But I can’t promise that I’m still any good. I had my arm broken and I just got the cast off so I might be rusty.”
Michael probably didn’t hear anything I said, and if he did, he didn’t care. He was ten. Of course he didn’t care. He wanted one thing and one thing only, and that was to know how to draw his favorite superhero.
I moved to the seat next to him and he flipped open the new sketchbook and set it in front of me.
“Are you sure you want me to use this one?”
“There’s no mistakes in it yet. My other one is just mistakes.”
“It’s okay to make mistakes.” I rolled the pencil in my hand between my fingers. It felt familiar, but frightening all at the same time. “What if I make a mistake? I haven’t drawn in a long time.”
Michael set the eraser down on the table. “It’s okay. I have erasers now.”
“Okay, kid. Here goes nothing.”
My hand shook at first and the first lines I put to paper weren’t as steady as they could have been. Michael didn’t notice that. Or care about it. He followed along in his other book, carefully copying everystep I showed him. When he was finished, he set his pencil down on the table and looked at his result.
In one second, he was up and out of his seat, carrying the sketchbook to the living room, triumphantly and excitedly telling his mom all about how he’d learned to draw Iron Man.
And I sat in the kitchen, feeling unmoored. As though my world had tilted on another axis. I was still sitting there, staring at the drawing I’d done. It was basic. Imperfect. But it felt like it was the best thing I’d ever drawn.
“That was a nice thing you did,” Patricia told me later after she’d shown Michael and his mom where they’d be staying and got them settled upstairs.
I shook my head, uncomfortable with the praise. “I didn’t do much.”
“You helped Michael. I don’t think you know just how much.”
I looked up at her. “However much you think I helped him, he helped me ten times more.”
She nodded, a slight smile tugging at her lips. “Michael says his favorite is spaghetti and meatballs. Care to help with dinner tonight?”
