Gideon brought Noah over to Rosie’s place bright and early on Sunday morning, the day after the wedding. She and Jorge lived in the cottage at the back of a property owned by a nice woman in her early seventies. Once a carriage house in the late 1800s, the cottage was quaint, with a small backyard. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a family room, and a kitchen with a breakfast nook were all she and Jorge needed.
She’d thought long and hard about what to do and where to go on their first outing. The safer choice would be to go somewhere loud and busy enough that Gideon wouldn’t have to interact with her too much. There were plenty of places that fit the bill—the trampoline gym would be wall-to-wall kids and parents, and the local public swimming pool was always overrun in the final days of summer. But then Jorge had suggested they take Noah and Gideon to one of their favorite places, somewhere most parents wouldn’t even consider for a playdate. Chi was right—playing it safe wasn’t the right move. If she wanted to make headway over Gideon’s walls, taking big risks would be the only way to get there. Besides, spending some time working with paints and brushes always made Rosie feel better. If they were lucky, maybe it would do the same for Gideon.
Jorge and Rosie had agreed to keep the location a secret for as long as possible. Partly for the fun of surprising Noah and Gideon—but also, at least as far as Rosie was concerned, making sure that Gideon couldn’t find a way to back out.
Which was why she’d sent Jorge, Noah, and Gideon straight out to the backyard while she gathered up the many supplies the four of them would need for the day. She even packed the car. Actually, it was Gideon’s SUV, because her tiny hatchback was too small for everything they’d need.
Standing at the kitchen window, drying her hands on a dish towel, she watched Gideon with the kids. His jeans were snug in all the right places, sending her heart rate bouncing into the stratosphere. Beneath his T-shirt, his muscles flexed and rippled as he played ball with the boys. She had to fan herself, especially when he bent low to catch a wild throw, and his jeans stretched tight across his behind. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday, and she liked him with that hint of stubble. Liked it so much that she could practically feel the phantom brush of his whiskers against her skin. Her hand trembled as she hung up the dish towel, and her breathing was just the tiniest bit shaky.
After the boys tired of that game, he pushed them on a tire swing her elderly landlady had allowed her to hang on the big tree. Their voices carried through the closed window. “Higher, Gid, higher.”
At the moment, his eyes were ocean blue, and he was smiling that smile only the boys ever saw. Yet again, he looked like she imagined he’d been as a teenager, before he’d gone to Iraq.
Although he’d never truly been a carefree teenager, had he? Not with the weight of a drug-addicted mother and a little sister to care for on his shoulders.
No one’s life was simple, Rosie mused as she packed their lunch into an insulated bag. She’d grown up as an only child in a run-down neighborhood in a raggedy house her mother had always kept spotlessly clean—but she’d been so happy. So carefree. So utterly unaware that she was missing anything at all. How could she have known when she had her parents’ love and attention? As much as any child could ask for. When her mother and father saw how much she loved to draw on the sidewalk with her bits of chalk, they’d found the money to buy her brushes and paint. And they’d spent hours in the library with her, poring over coffee-table art books, as excited about learning from the works of the old masters as she was, despite neither of them having a passionate interest in art. They’d taken her to museums on the free days, even when their feet must have hurt from their long days out. They’d encouraged her to spend as much time as she wanted studying her favorite paintings.
After her parents died in a car accident, and with no other family in the state, eleven-year-old Rosie had nowhere to go but foster care. Her life had changed in ways she could never have imagined. She’d had no terrible foster home experiences, although she’d never fully bonded with any of the families either. Still, she always had her memories of her loving parents, the life lessons they’d taught her about being kind to others and true to herself, along with the love of art they’d nurtured in her.
Once lunch was packed, Rosie wiped down the kitchen counter. Her home was also spotless, a trait inherited from her mother. And the lunch she’d made—shredded beef empanadas—was delicious, a recipe she’d learned at her father’s side. He’d always loved to cook.
Ready to go, she paused at the French doors leading to the backyard. Just one more minute to watch Gideon’s smile, one more glimpse of the real Gideon Jones.
No matter how gruff or closed off he could be with everyone else—including her—the way he smiled with the boys revealed the man he was on the inside. A man she very much wanted to know. If only he would let her…
With his back to her, Gideon shouldn’t have been able to hear the door open over the boys’ shouts and laughter. Yet his shoulders stiffened, and even before he’d turned to face her, his smile was gone, and shadows filled his eyes. Clearly, he was back to being on guard with her, just as he had been for the past nine months.
Only, yesterday at Ari’s wedding, she had changed. Rosie was no longer satisfied with Gideon’s one-word responses and expressionless glances. She wanted the smiles he gave the boys. She wanted the happiness that glowed in his eyes when he looked at them. She wanted Gideon to share all that with her too.
At the very least, she wanted to know that she was his friend, no matter what.
“Everything’s ready,” she called. “We can head out now.”
Gideon helped Jorge and Noah scramble down from the tire swing, then the boys raced across the small lawn to her.
“What’s the surprise, Rosie?” Noah asked. “Jorge says you have something awesome planned for today. He wouldn’t tell us, but you could if you wanted to.”
She smiled at him. “It’s not a surprise if I tell you.”
“Do you know, Uncle Gideon?” Noah asked.
“All I know is that Rosie knows how to have fun. So I’m sure the surprise will be great.”
It was one of the nicest things he’d said about her. Rosie was practically glowing as they drove toward her surprise destination. Okay, so maybe they weren’t officially in the friend zone yet—and they certainly weren’t beyond the friend zone, not by any stretch of the imagination—but it was a step in the right direction.
In the backseat, the boys chattered, talking about Noah’s video call that morning with Ari and Matt in Iceland, asking what they were going to eat for lunch, pointing out landmarks, plastering themselves to the passenger side window when they passed the Flintstone House along Highway 280. The home, made of free-form domes, had been a landmark as long as Rosie could remember. Previously adobe-colored, it was now painted deep purple and burnt orange and rusty red.
“It’s got dinosaurs,” Jorge exclaimed from the backseat as he gazed at the huge metal sculptures filling the backyard.
“Look!” Rosie exclaimed. “That’s Charlie’s T-Rex.” She’d almost forgotten Charlie had sold it to the owners of the iconic house. “Doesn’t it look amazing?” Everyone agreed that it most certainly did.
Once they were in the city, she told Gideon where to turn, and as soon as they entered Lincoln Park, Jorge started to bounce in the back. “Mom, can I tell them now?”
She grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “Yup, now would be good.”
They crested the hill, and a gorgeous classical structure appeared. “The Legion of Honor. It’s a museum,” Jorge explained, “with all these really cool paintings. Mom and I come here all the time, just like she used to come here with her parents. And we go to the de Young Museum too.”
“Why don’t you tell Noah and Gideon about the special activity we do at the museum?” Rosie suggested.
“We paint!” So excited, he sat on the edge of his seat, straining against his seat belt. “There’s this one room where they let us set up easels and copy the paintings. Then Mom and I compare our pictures. It’s so much fun,” he told Noah and Gideon. “You’re going to love it just like we do!”
“Are you really allowed to copy famous paintings?” Noah asked.
“Yeah. But it’s not like stealing or anything. It’s just to mess around and pretend to be a famous painter. Although Mommy doesn’t need to pretend, because her paintings are so awesome that she really could be famous if she wanted to.”
As Gideon parked in the last vacant spot in the roundabout, he finally spoke. “I didn’t know you liked to paint.”
“It’s just a hobby.” Once, long ago, she’d dreamed of her paintings hanging in galleries. Back when painting was all she thought about, all she yearned to do. Until she got pregnant, and everything changed. Still, Jorge’s faith in her artistic ability was touching.
“While I was doing my accounting courses in college—” Accounting was what paid the bills. “—I also took as many painting technique and art history classes as I could squeeze into my schedule.” She was ecstatic that Jorge loved art as much as she did. “Jorge’s drawings are amazing. Next time you’re over at the cottage, I’ll show them to you.” She would have done so today, but she hadn’t wanted to accidentally give away their secret destination or the fact that she planned for them all to paint today.
“Are me and Gideon just going to watch you guys paint?” Noah asked, his mouth drooping, clearly not liking that idea.
“No way,” she told Noah. “We’re all going to.” She smiled at Gideon, trying not to betray her nerves about his reaction. There was more than a fifty-fifty chance he’d totally regret agreeing to their playdate, especially when she added, “Even you, Gideon.”
As expected, he looked more than a little shell-shocked. Despite her jangling nerves, she acted cool and calm as she climbed out of the SUV and opened the back. Gideon’s needle was definitely leaning toward regret.
“Our easels. Yay!” Jorge jumped in the air, and Noah naturally jumped with him. They were true pals; whatever excited one excited the other.
Only Gideon remained silent as he helped her pull out the sketch pads and easels, which folded down to the size of backpacks.
Once they’d gathered up everything, including paint palettes and brushes, they crossed the road and climbed the long, wide path through the central columns and on to Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker. Rosie took a dozen pictures of the boys mimicking the pose and then in front of the mini Louvre pyramid in the middle of the courtyard. Throughout, Gideon hung back a couple of feet, his needle edging ever higher in the regret direction.
As they walked through the ticket booth, her favorite docent waved. “Hey, Cherise,” Rosie called.
“Good to see you, honey.” Cherise was in her sixties and had been a museum docent back when Rosie used to come here with her parents. “You’ve got friends.” She ran her eyes up and down Gideon’s impressive frame, not in the least abashed to show how much she appreciated his form. “How lovely. You know how much our patrons love to see artists at work.”
After they’d passed, Gideon finally spoke again. “People are going to see our paintings?” His voice might actually be tinged with terror.
Before Rosie could respond, Jorge said, “I like it when people look at our paintings. They always say nice things about them, about how talented me and Mom are. I’ll bet you guys get lots of compliments too.”
Gideon didn’t look convinced, even by Jorge’s enthusiastic response. Rosie could have smoothed things over by telling him the playdate was just for the boys, that all he had to do was dab his paintbrush on the paper and pretend. But she’d already decided not to pussyfoot around him anymore—even if he clearly wasn’t at all thrilled about painting. Plus, a part of her still hoped that he might let himself get into it, rather than holding back like he usually did.
Crazier things had happened.
As she led them back to the last room that housed the Impressionists, with every painting they passed, she felt as though she’d come home to good friends. “I love The Russian Bride’s Attire. And the Renoir and Anthony van Dyck too. These paintings, they feel so…” She breathed deeply, as if she could drag in their essence from the air in the room. “So wondrous. Even after all the times I’ve been here, I still can hardly believe this museum has Van Gogh and Manet and Monet and Salvador Dali and Degas. That I don’t need to travel to France or Spain to see them.” She turned to Gideon. “Do you know Van Gogh destroyed most of his initial paintings because he thought they weren’t good enough?” She shook her head. “Just imagine if those paintings were still around. Not for how much they’d be worth, but for how beautiful they’d surely be.”
Jorge pulled on the hem of her shirt. “I want to do the Salvador Dali, Mom.”
“The Dali sounds great, honey.” She turned to Gideon. “What do you think about doing Monet’s Water Lilies with Noah? They’re one of my favorites—almost everyone’s, really.”
“Monet was my mom’s favorite painter,” Gideon said. “She had a book about Water Lilies when I was growing up.”
It was Rosie’s turn to be stunned. After getting his back up over painting in public, the last thing she expected was for him to open up to her in any way.
Finally, she found her voice. “There’s a reason his paintings of the lilies in his backyard in France are popular around the world—they’re undeniably beautiful, in all seasons.” When he didn’t say anything more about his mother, she offered, “I’ll help you two set up.”
Though he thanked her, she knew that painting in a gallery was the last thing he would choose to do with his free time. If not for the boys, she suspected he would have sprinted out of the museum and back to the SUV.
After she set up Noah’s and Gideon’s easels, along with sketch pads and palettes, she got Jorge going. Her son liked to work in colored pencil, sometimes charcoal. He often started out at the easel, then moved to a bench and worked with his sketch pad on his lap.
She positioned her easel so she could see Noah and Gideon without being obvious that she was watching them.
Jorge raced over to whisper in Noah’s ear as his friend made great swipes of color across his pad.
When Jorge ran back, she reminded him, “Walk, sweetheart. Be respectful.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
But his excitement was catching. She wanted to race to Gideon, whisper in his ear as he picked up his brush, looked at the paper, then at the paints. He stood unmoving for so long, she thought he wouldn’t do it, after all. That he might just walk away.
Until, suddenly, he grabbed a brush and began splashing color on the pad.
The museum was surprisingly empty for a Sunday, though that could have been due to the gorgeous day outside. Patrons occasionally stopped to watch them paint for a few seconds before walking on. But the person getting the most attention was Gideon. And Rosie knew exactly why.
Though he clearly had no artistic training, from the first brush of paint across the paper, both Gideon and his painting seemed to vibrate with energy.
At first, he used the same colors as the Water Lilies—blues and greens, dabs of purple, a little red. But as he continued to paint, the colors grew darker, covering the brighter tones he’d started with, until it bore no resemblance at all to the original Monet.
Yet, in every drop of paint, there was something so visceral, so gut-wrenching, as if the very flowers he was trying to paint were dying right before him. He swirled pain and grief and anger and regret across the paper, his hand flashing, slashing, dashing, the colors mixing, bleeding, running.
He moved as though he was in a trance, as though everything was coming out of him without conscious effort. He anointed the painting with pure, raw emotion.
And what he created was amazing.
* * *
Slashes of color flew across Gideon’s vision, flaming reds and burning oranges and intense yellows over dark, bruised blues and guilt-ridden browns and howling blacks. And rising up out of the swirl of color were the faces of Hank Garrett… Jonny Danzi… Ralph Esterhausen… Ralph’s wife and kids… And Karmen. Loyal, dedicated Karmen, who never should have been there in the first place.
Gideon’s team.
Gideon’s responsibility.
Gideon’s failure.
“Uncle Gideon.” Noah grabbed his free hand. “Come and look at what I made!”
Gideon blinked. Once, then again. Until the faces, the fire, were gone, leaving nothing more than blobs of paint—red and orange and yellow streaks across a background of blue and brown and black.
Yet he still felt the horror. And he could still hear the screaming.
“Uncle Gideon!” Noah yanked harder on his hand.
The insistence in his nephew’s voice helped him pull his broken strings back together, at least long enough to focus on what Noah was saying. “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”
“Come see my painting. You’re really going to like it.” Paint streaked Noah’s face, his hands, his clothes. “Your painting is super cool too!” he said, a huge smile on his face.
Gideon moved, his limbs rubbery and jerky, as though they had to learn how to work again. Slowly, he came back to the here and now—to the well-lit museum, to the cool, smooth floor beneath his feet, to the cream-colored walls filled with masterworks. And especially to Noah waiting expectantly for a response to his painting.
“Way cool, kiddo.” Though his nephew’s work was really good, clearly depicting lilies floating in the water, Gideon’s voice was barely more than a rasp, harsh in his throat. He put his hand on Noah’s shoulder, squeezing it. “You’re doing a great job, just like I knew you would. Do you want to paint something else?” Though he’d spent much of the past ten years mostly silent, usually speaking only when spoken to, today he needed to keep talking to drown out the explosions in his head. “We could do that Van Gogh or the Manet if you want.”
Noah shook his head. “Nah, I’m going to help Jorge with his instead. See ya!”
His nephew raced off, leaving Gideon alone with Rosie. And with the horror that he’d painted. The atrocity, the blood and guts and guilt and fear and pain he’d spilled all over the page.
She stood in front of his easel, studying his painting with intense focus. “It’s amazing, Gideon.”
That’s when he knew—she saw it all. Everything he worked so hard to keep hidden inside. All the things he’d never shown to anyone else, not even Ari.
Only Rosie had ever been able to clearly see the hell he’d returned from. Only Rosie had ever truly seen the darkness that festered inside him. The darkness that would always be there, made up of guilt and regret and sorrow and a desperate wish to rewind the calendar to get everything right this time. A desperate wish that could never come true.
Rosie called his painting amazing, but she was only being kind. Because that’s who Rosie was, one of the kindest, sweetest women he’d ever known.
He didn’t deserve her kindness. Not after all the pain he’d caused so many people.
Ashamed by all he’d let go on the easel—the depth of the darkness inside that was now splattered in thick paint on paper stunned even him—he reached around her and tore off the sheet. He wanted to rip it into a million little pieces. Before the boys could gaze at it too long and know true terror. Before Rosie took a closer look and saw how truly dark Gideon’s memories were.
But Rosie stopped him. “No.” She put her hands over his. “I never let Jorge rip up his paintings. I’ve told him a dozen times that everything he creates is good, whether it’s technically perfect or not, whether it’s simple or complicated, whether it stays on the surface or goes deep. Especially then. So that’s what I’m saying to you now, Gideon. What you’ve created is good. I won’t let you destroy it.”
Years of raising a strong-willed little boy gave her a grip firm enough to take the painting from him before he could stop her. Though it was still wet, she rolled it up and slid it into one of the cardboard tubes they’d brought with them.
His insides screamed to get it back. But he didn’t move.
Jorge ran up to them. “Mom, I’m starved.”
As though she hadn’t needed to damn near tear the painting from Gideon’s hands a moment before, she smiled at her son and said, “Me too. Let’s pack up now and have our picnic on the lawn out front.”