The sun was shining.
Emmet wasn’t known for clear winter skies—for clear skies, period—and until now, the new year had been gray. This morning, though, the clouds had cleared, and a strong sun beamed down from a crystalline sky. If Eileen believed in good omens, she’d take this to be one: hopeful weather on her first day of AA.
The meeting had been everything she’d expected. The introductory “Hi, Insert-Name-Here.” The linoleum in a church basement. The awkwardness. The bad and/or sad stories. The sobriety chips.
The meeting had also been nothing like she’d expected. For instance, there was Finny, her sponsor, who was a gray-haired, flannel-wearing ex–rock climber who told Eileen she was “rad” for showing up. There was the tray of homemade green tea mochi, brought in by a two-year-sober chef. There was the fact that, when Eileen had introduced herself, no one had judgmentally asked her how old she was. And how, after the meeting, when Eileen had walked out of Prince of Peace Lutheran’s basement and into the sun, she got an urge she thought had died two years ago.
She wanted to paint this shockingly sunny day.
Eileen drove home in the Caravan, thinking about something she’d told Murphy in the graveyard the day after Christmas: “If you need help, it’s okay to ask.”
It was simple advice.
So how had Eileen not taken it herself, until today?
Maybe because asking for help felt like extracting her own teeth, Novocain-free.
She was doing it, though. New year, new Eileen.
She snorted to herself, making a turn at a four-way stop. She was beginning to sound like Claire’s patron saint, Harper Everly.
Only, no. Because, unlike Harper, Eileen planned for failure. In fact, she guessed she probably would fail a lot this year. The only difference from last year was that she wouldn’t fail alone.
A lot of things had changed since Rockport. For one, Eileen knew the whole story. Mom had told the truth.
Knowing that truth didn’t instantly heal the sore spot under Eileen’s skin—the one that had formed years ago. It had carved out a space in her heart, though. Because teenage Leslie Clark hadn’t asked for any of this. Life had happened to her, at her, in a bad way. She hadn’t had a family to make it better. She hadn’t had sisters, the way Eileen did.
Eileen was beginning to see that Mom had been doing the best she could. A young single mother, raising three kids on minimum wage, paying off her dead husband’s medical bills. A mom with a dark secret, but not the secret Eileen had assumed. She’d done the best she could with what life had given her. And really, wasn’t that all any person could do?
Including Eileen.
It wasn’t that Eileen was well now, or cured. When it came to the Jack Daniel’s and her darkest thoughts, Eileen wasn’t sure there was a “cure,” in the real sense of the word. Amelioration, maybe. That was AA. That was the prospect of the Myrtle Waugh Fellowship.
Eileen wasn’t well, but for the first time in a long time, she thought that maybe, one day, she might be. For today, the thought was enough. As was this fact: She was Mark Enright’s daughter, and he hadn’t been a killer. He’d been the father of her memories. He’d been the one with the citrusy scent and swishy bangs. He’d been the artist, the same one who had sat with her at a kitchen table and made finger-painted animals.
She had Mark Enright’s blood in her veins. It was the blood of brothers, some broken, some reclusive, some beaten down. It was the blood of mothers, some absent and some monstrous. The blood of fathers, some quiet and some dead. The blood of sisters, running hot and contentious, warm and loving. Enrights, Clarks, Sullivans, and other ancestors with stories Eileen would never know—they were part of her, but none of them determined who she was.
And now art wasn’t something to be feared. Art could be a way out.
Claire had made that possible, and while Eileen hadn’t decided about the fellowship yet, she did mean to drive to Eugene in two weeks’ time, for the interview.
She was doing the best she could.
Eileen pulled the Caravan into the carport and parked. When she came around to the house, she found Claire sitting on the front porch, wearing her peacoat and messy hair bun. Sun slanted across her face, drawing thick shadows of evergreen branches on her cheeks.
Eileen stopped for a moment, watching her. She and Claire, they’d been close. They’d shared secrets and fought battles, side by side. Then they’d lost the threads that had been holding them together. Maybe those threads were ripped out for good.
Maybe, too, there was another pattern to be stitched.
Claire was a living portrait in the sun and shadows—someone Eileen wanted to paint. She’d call the piece Exceller, and she’d mean it in the most unironic way.
Eileen breathed in deep and walked forward.
“Hey,” she said, reaching the porch. “Weird weather, huh?”