Page 114 of Drawing Home
“Finally. At least one person who doesn’t underestimate me.”
“I definitely never underestimated you. I think, though, I underestimated myself the past few years in New York.” He stood up, looking out at the water. “It was time for a change.”
“Yes, well, I’ve always said, one has to be the architect of one’s own life. And now I suppose if I ever need…boat renovation, I know whom to call. We all need to move forward.” She felt perspiration around her neck. Very damaging to pearls. “I need to get indoors.”
She walked back up the dock.
“Bea,” Kyle called out. She turned, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Yes?”
“Make things right for Emma.”
Hadn’t she just said she would? How irritating. With a shake of her head, she continued making her way back to the house.
She checked the kitchen and the living room and the breakfast nook. Emma was nowhere to be found, nor was Penny. She supposed she wasn’t the only one with the impulse to make herself scarce. It was going to be a long week for all of them.
Emma’s bedroom door was open. She peeked inside, and when she was certain no one was there, she placed Henry’s book on the bed.
Yes, they all had to move forward. She had hoped Henry’s drawings would give her a clue how to do that. But they had raised more questions than they had answered.
She removed Penny’s drawing from the back of the book so she could return it to where it belonged in the loose manuscript pages of her graphic novel. Penny, the budding artist.
With a sudden burst of clarity, she realized what Henry had wanted.
She stood very still, holding Penny’s drawing of the four of them—Penny, Emma, Angus, and Bea—in the Windsong dining room. The scene of the absurd circumstance of their first meeting, the day she had learned that Henry had left his house to a child.
Outside, a woodpecker hammered away at a tree. Bea told herself to breathe.
Okay, Henry. I finally get what you want.
She just hoped it wasn’t too late to make it happen.
It was part of Emma’s new routine: Say good night to Penny, pour a glass of wine, and sit out by the pool until she felt like maybe, just maybe, she was tired enough to fall asleep. Tonight was a little different because, as she settled into one of the chaise longues, she had Henry Wyatt’s book propped up on her knees.
Earlier that day, after Penny’s appointment with Dr. Wang, she’d returned to the house to change into lighter clothes before she ran out again to do more errands. But then she found the book. At first, spotting it against her stark white comforter, she thought it was something Penny was reading and had left accidentally in her room. The note sticking out was the only thing that flagged her attention to take a closer look. And once she’d read Bea’s words, she forgot about her errands.
At first, she considered simply marching Henry’s book back to Bea’s room and leaving it there unread. She did not want to let Bea get to her, did not want to be manipulated into forgiving Bea for what she’d pulled. But the opportunity to look at Henry’s remembrance of her father, a friendship she almost could not believe had existed and that she had not known about, was too much to resist. And after she read the book, she was glad she hadn’t resisted. Oh, the drawings!
Sketches of the two men fishing and boating and drinking at the bar at the hotel captured her father in ways she’d never witnessed. The true gift of an artist’s eye was seeing things no one else saw—things that not even a camera could pick up. It warmed her heart to get a glimpse of the happiness her father had experienced the last year of his life as he shared his beloved town with an outsider. She’d always thought of her father as the ultimate local, someone who would never mix with the summer people. And yet a stranger from Manhattan had walked into his bar and inspired a true friendship. It said something about her father’s generosity and openness that made her suffer the loss of him all over again. But it also made her think about the type of woman he’d want her to be.
It was impossible, too, not to see Penny’s drawings in a whole new way. Her art wasn’t just a hobby or good therapy for her. She could someday do work that touched other people. The significance of her talent, the responsibility of it, felt suddenly weighty.
She looked up at the sound of Kyle’s boat, the motor rumbling in the distance. It was hard to tell if he was coming or going until the rustling of the tall, weedy grass bordering the stretch of beach beyond the pool clued her in that she was getting a visitor.
“Hey,” he said, emerging from the shadows. “I hope this isn’t too much of an intrusion.”
“Not at all,” she said, putting the book aside. The truth was, she’d been thinking about him. They hadn’t crossed paths since the day at the courthouse. She didn’t know if this was because she was running around getting things finalized for the auction party, because he was busy working, or because he was simply less interested in spending time with her now that they were firmly in the friend zone.
But she did know that something inside of her soared just a little as he moved closer.
“Have a seat,” she said.
“I actually need your help on the water.”
“My help?”
“Yeah. I’m ready to christen the boat. It’s bad luck to do it alone,” he said.
