Page 39 of The Do-Over

Generational curses. He knew all about those.

He knew about neglectful fathers too. He’d rather break his own throwing hand than be one of those.

“If you have something to tell Jenna, you should try to do it. With words, not just a painting.”

Richard grunted. Then he scratched at his beard. Then shifted his shoulders inside his robe. “Just tell her my painting is done. She can come see it.”

“She’s busy with her own artwork. They moved her deadline up.”

From Richard’s blank stare, he knew the man knew nothing about his daughter’s project. He shook his head. “The mushroom guide? Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest?”

Richard’s instant loss of interest grated on Billy’s nerves. “I should get back to my run now. I’ll tell her your painting is done.”

“Wait.”

Richard poured steaming black coffee into an espresso cup. The fragrance filled the old farmhouse kitchen, making Billy’s mouth water. He was very much ready to get out of here and find some breakfast.

“Mention chicken piccata too. And that meatloaf of hers.”

Oh my God. Billy bit back the million retorts he wanted to make. Pick up the phone and tell her yourself. Why is it always about you? Why aren’t you more proud of your incredible daughter? Why are you so selfish?

Billy jogged away from the house, wondering what it would be like to grow up with someone so focused on themselves. What had that done to Jenna? Was that why she’d been so willing to put Billy and his dreams first?

And what about him?

Was he really, underneath it all, still the same selfish kid he’d been when he and Jenna had gotten married? He wanted to believe that he’d changed, but here he was, asking Jenna to do things like impress a reporter and attend a boring awards dinner.

If he could do it over again, would he pass on the baseball contract?

No, of course not. They’d both been so excited, and rightfully so.

Would he behave better during his off hours? Would he put more effort into making sure Jenna’s dreams were center stage too? Would he be more responsible, more considerate, more there?

He would. He knew he would. His heart ached with that certainty. Too bad there were no do-overs in life.

Twelve

It didn’t happen often, but when Jenna got the chance to lose herself in her illustration work, she became almost another person. Someone so free and powerful that she could fly across the sky with pure grace and bliss. She could immerse herself in the precision and perfection of the object she was drawing—because she’d learned that every piece of nature had its own specific and particular beauty. Her job was to convey it as accurately as possible, but in a functional way—this is the stamen, this is the plant’s vascular system, and so forth.

Really, she could have used a botany degree, but she’d never been interested in college. So she’d taken online courses and learned everything she needed to get the job done.

Her current subject matter was a Newfoundland Chanterelle, which she loved for its whimsical burnt orange shape, like trumpets played by forest gnomes. Normally she would be lost in the work of tracing its flared rim and delicate understructure. But she was in a rush because she had to finish this drawing before she and Billy left for the Helping Hands Awards.

On the other side of her closed office door, she could hear the boys banging around. Annika had no interest in traveling to the Twin Cities for a dinner on one of her few nights off. Instead she’d volunteered to stay with the boys. They were all busy building an elaborate indoor blanket fort that took up the entire living room and half the dining room.

Jenna jerked as something thumped to the ground. This was hopeless. She wasn’t going to do the Chanterelle justice if she couldn’t concentrate. She’d just have to do it when they got back from Minneapolis. Number of things were getting put off until then. For instance, cooking chicken piccata for her father. She just hadn’t had a chance with her looming deadline.

Billy had piqued her curiosity with her father’s message about “everything” becoming clear. At the same time, it irritated her that the message had come through her ex-husband. Some things just never changed.

As she was putting away her pencils, a knock on the door made her jump. Billy’s low voice filtered through the door.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we should get on the road early. It just started snowing and they keep bumping up how many inches we’re going to get.”

With a last regretful look at her work, she stepped back into real life. Which for various strange reasons suddenly included an appearance at a fancy awards dinner.

She opened the door, and her heart did its usual skip and jump at the sight of Billy. When was it ever going to stop that silliness?

Billy wore jeans and a thick sweater that she recognized as one of his brother Galen’s early works. Its heathery gray shade turned his eyes to slate blue and made her itch to grab her pencils.

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