Redemption 03 - Return Read online

  But trouble filled the air from the moment she stepped inside.

  The new girl, Maria, was serving breakfast to Helen and Edith, but Irvel’s spot was empty. Ashley hung her sweater in the closet, went to the kitchen, and put the tea in the cupboard. From there she went to the dining room. “Where’s Irvel?”

  Helen waved a trembling hand in the air. “No one checks people anymore around this place.” She gave the table a sharp rap with her hand. “I’ve had it.”

  Edith’s hand shook as she directed a forkful of eggs toward her mouth. Her words were quiet and more of a continuous mumble. “Hello…hello…hello…”

  “It’s okay, Helen.” Ashley made her way around the table, all the while keeping her eyes on the new girl. “I’ve been checked.”

  Helen shot her a hard look. “Who are you? That’s what I’d like to know. Showing up so late in the afternoon, and how do we know you were checked?”

  “I was checked, Helen.” The only time Helen was calm was after a visit from her daughter, Sue. Otherwise the Alzheimer’s left her angry and suspicious, as she was this morning. But Irvel never missed breakfast, and Ashley felt a gnawing within her at the sight of the empty chair at the head of the table.

  She followed Maria into the kitchen. “Where’s Irvel?”

  “I didn’t want to talk about her out there.” Maria lowered her voice to a whisper. She was a soft-spoken woman with a kind heart and a strong work ethic. So far she’d been wonderful with the five residents at Sunset Hills. “Irvel’s sick. Her blood pressure is up, and the doctor ordered her to stay in bed today.”

  “Sick?” A pit formed just beneath Ashley’s heart. “I’ll check on her.”

  She headed down the hall toward Irvel’s room and prayed that the situation with Irvel was minor. The residents at Sunset Hills were like family to Ashley. Bert, with his newfound ability to communicate and the saddle set up in his room for him to shine each day; Edith, who had screamed at her own reflection until Ashley removed the mirror from her bathroom; Helen with her mood swings; the newest patient, a woman who rarely left her bedroom; and Irvel.

  They all mattered to Ashley, but Irvel was special. Irvel was her friend. Though it took the old woman time to figure out who Ashley was, and though some days she never quite did, Irvel was always genteel and hospitable, a woman with Southern charm and an insistence that her dead husband was still alive.

  Ashley had framed a dozen old photographs of Hank and hung them on Irvel’s wall. Then, a few months ago, she’d painted a portrait of the man. As manager, she’d been given full control by the owner to continue on with a type of care that allowed Alzheimer patients to live in the past. Past-Present, the method was called.

  Now that no one reminded Irvel that her husband was dead, she’d been much happier. And much healthier. Until today.

  Ashley took quick steps down the hall and into Irvel’s room. The woman was awake, but her face was gaunt and her hands lay limp on the bedspread. Her eyes followed Ashley as she made her way across the floor to the edge of the bed. The air was hot and stale, and tinged with a sick smell.

  “Hi, Irvel. I heard you weren’t feeling so good.” Ashley ran her fingers across Irvel’s forehead and brushed back the wiry fringe of bangs.

  “Yes, dear,” Irvel swallowed, and the effort made her wait a beat before talking again. “Hank…Hank told me to rest for a while.” She managed a lighthearted smile. “So here I am.”

  Ashley glanced at the woman’s nightstand and saw a fresh glass of orange juice. “Are you thirsty, Irvel? Some juice, maybe?”

  Irvel smacked her lips together and made a few swipes with her tongue at the pasty residue near the corners of her mouth. “Yes…that would be lovely, dear. And later maybe some tea.”

  “I brought peppermint tea today.” Ashley held the orange juice close to Irvel and bent the straw so she didn’t have to lift her head off the pillow. “Peppermint’s your favorite, right?”

  Irvel sucked hard on the straw and downed half the glass. She backed away from the straw. Juice trickled down her soft, wrinkled chin, but she made no move to wipe it off. Her eyes grew wide, and she looked at Ashley as if seeing her for the first time. “My goodness, dear. You have lovely hair. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “Not lately, Irvel.” Ashley snatched a tissue from Irvel’s nightstand and dried her chin. “Thank you for noticing.”

  As quickly as her energy level had peaked, it dropped, and the old woman settled deeper into the pillow. “Can’t understand why I’m so tired.” She peered at Ashley and made an attempt at another smile. “Hank leaves me here to have tea with the girls, and look at me. Too tired to get up.”

  “It’s okay, Irvel. Hank wants you to get some rest.”

  “Yes.” Irvel’s words were slurring now, and she’d be out soon. As long as Ashley had known her, Irvel had been able to fall asleep in seconds when she was tired. “You’re right. Hank likes when I get…” The old woman’s eyes closed, and Ashley smiled at the soft snores.

  She bent over and pressed a feathery kiss on Irvel’s cheek. The woman’s skin was soft and dusty, like the fuzz on a peach. When Ashley drew back, she studied Irvel. She couldn’t be dying, could she? Irvel wasn’t even eighty yet. She had lots of time, right? The woman’s breathing was not quite steady and even slower than usual.

  Before leaving, Ashley took Irvel’s hand in hers and closed her eyes. God, help her pull through this…please. Sunset Hills wouldn’t be the same without her. She laid Irvel’s delicate hand back on the bedspread. “Good night, Irvel. Dream about Hank.”

  The rest of the day Irvel stayed in bed, while the others did more than their usual mumbling and wandering about. Lu, the owner of Sunset Hills, had hired a bookkeeper so Ashley could be with the residents. She enjoyed eating with the ladies and bringing Bert’s lunch to him. She liked helping them with their showers and having tea with them in the afternoon.

  But all day, nothing felt quite right.

  It was Irvel’s absence, of course, but it was more than that. Every few minutes Ashley caught herself thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with work. Why didn’t Landon call more, and what kept him so busy? And what would happen when he’d finished his one-year commitment to the FDNY? Would he come home to Bloomington? And if so, would they pick up where they’d left off before September 11? Or had his feelings for her cooled?

  And what about her paintings?

  Landon had moved on with his life, but here she was, still hiding at Sunset Hills Adult Care Home. Meanwhile her house was practically bursting at the seams with artwork, pieces never seen by anyone but her and little Cole.

  The fog of unsettling thoughts stayed thick around Ashley’s heart long after she finished her shift and picked up Cole from her parents’ house. Questions assaulted her the entire drive back to her own home.

  Why was she different? Everyone else had a plan, a purpose. Brooke and Peter had their family and their medical practices; Erin and Sam were moving to Texas in the summer, and Erin already had a teaching job lined up; Kari had her modeling and Ryan his football coaching, and together they had sweet baby Jessie and a future so bright it was sometimes painful to look at.

  Luke…well, he was the exception.

  But all of her sisters had found that next phase in life and moved into it without looking back. So what about her? She’d come halfway, hadn’t she? Gotten over Paris and found a faith she’d run from most of her life. She’d even figured out how to be a mother to the wonderful child who was her son. But deep within her a knowing existed—one that she’d been running from ever since she boarded the plane at the Paris airport. For three years she’d run from it, denied it, pretended it was only a hobby. But nothing made her desire go away.

  She still needed to paint the same way she needed to breathe. Desperately, undeniably.

  Up-and-coming artists were often featured on-line, and Ashley checked their Web sites to see what was being heralded as the next great body of work. Sh
e always left those moments with the same conviction: Her work was right there, as good as theirs. The colors subtle, striking; the subjects bathed in a kind of passion and emotion and light that sometimes took her own breath away.

  So what was she afraid of?

  And why hadn’t Landon called more?

  “Okay, baby, we’re here. Get your backpack.” She parked the car in the garage and helped Cole into the house. He sat on a barstool opposite her while she prepared to make scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. His little-boy conversation was the first thing that had cleared her mind all day.

  “I did a good thing at Grandma’s. Know what?”

  “You picked up your toys?”

  Cole giggled, and the sound settled Ashley’s nerves. “No, Mommy, I haffa do that every day.”

  “Okay, then.” Ashley set her whisk down and anchored her elbows on the counter between them. “What good thing did you do?”

  “I prayed for my friend Landon.”

  Ashley felt her heart catch and stumble. “That was a good thing, Cole.” She straightened and worked the whisk into the bowl of eggs.

  “He told me to pray for him, remember, Mommy?” Cole flopped his forearms onto the counter and cocked his head at her. “So today I prayed lots and lots.”

  Ashley dumped the eggs into the heated frying pan on the stove. “Okay, Coley, I have a question for you.” She looked at her son. “What made you think about praying for him today?”

  “I saw the picture you made of me and him ’cuz it was in the living room and that’s where I left my backpack.”

  “And the painting made you think of him?”

  “No, Mommy, ’course not.” Cole’s giggle was pure delight. “I think about him all the time, ’cuz he’s my bestest friend.”

  “He is, huh?” Ashley hated the way her heart got fidgety whenever she heard Landon’s name, whenever she thought of the relationship he shared with her son. What if he didn’t come back? What if she and Cole weren’t part of his long-term plans? It was wrong to let her son fantasize about Landon this way. But nothing short of God could make her stop him.

  “Yep.” Cole made a little shrug. “But sometimes I forget to pray.” His eyes lit up again. “That’s why it was a good thing I saw your picture, Mommy. ’Cuz it made me ’member.”

  Ashley stirred the eggs for a moment. “Cole, do you think Mommy’s paintings are good?”

  “ ’Course I do.” He hopped down from the stool, skittered around the kitchen island, and grabbed hold of her legs. “Know what Grandma says about your pictures, Mommy?”

  Ashley stiffened. She and her mother had covered miles of ground in the past year, but her parents had never seemed to think much of her artwork. When she was in high school, she’d show them a piece and they’d smile and nod. Then her mother would say, “Have you given much thought to what you want to study in college, dear? Those years are just around the corner.”

  When she chose art as her major, the comments changed. “Do you see yourself teaching art, Ashley, or maybe working at a gallery? You still have time to add a more practical minor, you know. Business or education, something like that.”

  Then there’d been the nightmare in Paris.

  Her mother had fought the trip from the beginning. Ashley’s father finally swayed her to allow it. When Ashley came back a year later, pregnant and ready to throw out her easel, her mother never said a word about being right. She didn’t have to. Ashley’s life made the truth painfully obvious.

  Cole tugged on her again. “Mommy, did you hear me? Don’t you wanna know what Grandma said about your pictures?”

  Ashley dropped her gaze to her son and managed a weak smile. “Sure, honey.” She held her breath. “What did Grandma say?”

  “She said—” Cole’s smile reached from cheek to cheek—“they should be in a usee’um.”

  “A museum, you mean?” Her mother wouldn’t have said that, would she?

  “That’s what I said, Mommy.” Cole skipped toward the back door. “A usee’um.” He raised his eyebrows. “Can I play in the back till dinner?”

  Ashley gripped the countertop and sucked in a quick breath. “Sure, I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  When Cole left, Ashley turned off the burner beneath the eggs and wandered into her living room, the place where her paintings were piled three deep along the walls. Her easel stood in the far corner, a testimony to the truth that had plagued her all day.

  Her dream was still alive.

  As long as she was painting, it lived and breathed and sometimes—on days like today—it sang within her.

  Her mother thought her artwork belonged in a museum? Why hadn’t she ever told Ashley she felt that way? Ashley couldn’t remember once when her mother went out of her way to see one of her paintings. Now she was raving about them to Cole?

  A voice pierced Ashley’s soul, one from a lifetime ago. Jean-Claude Pierre, sneering at the best piece she’d painted up until that point: “It is trash, Ashley. Nothing more than American trash.”

  She clenched her fists and gave a strong shake of her head. No, that wasn’t true. It isn’t true. Take away the doubts, Lord. Make me believe in this…this gift you’ve given me.

  A Bible verse flashed in her mind like the whisper of springtime wind through the elm trees lining the street out front: “Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”

  The words were a verse Ryan Taylor had talked about once when the Baxter family was gathered for dinner. It was the Scripture he used to motivate his players, even though technically God wasn’t supposed to be mentioned at a public school.

  But here…now…God brought the words to life for her and her alone.

  Whatever she did, she must work at it with all her heart. Parenting Cole, tending to the residents at Sunset Hills Adult Care Home, earning a living for herself and her son.

  And yes, even painting. Maybe especially painting.

  She moved across the room to the painting of Landon and Cole, the one with Landon in his uniform and Cole looking like he’d found the greatest treasure in the world. It did belong in a museum, didn’t it? On a wall between the works of other great artists.

  Landon had followed his heart to New York City to fight fires, to the place where his best friend, Jalen, had begged him to come. After September 11, Landon knew Jalen was among the missing. But it took him nearly ninety days to find Jalen’s body in the pile of rubble at Ground Zero. After that, Landon’s dream changed.

  “One year in New York,” she could hear him telling her. “I’ll do what Jalen would’ve wanted me to do and put in a year.”

  What was it she’d spent a lifetime saying? That she wanted to be a famous artist, have people line up to see her paintings and barter over who would pay thousands of dollars to take one home. She shifted her gaze and took in one painting after another.…

  She’d taken digital photographs of each and catalogued them on a computer file. It was all there, wasn’t it? If she wanted to make it as an artist, why was she hiding her artwork in her living room? Was that what God meant by working at it with all her heart? When no one—not even her mother—would ever see her work?

  The answer rang clear in her mind.

  Bloomington had a few galleries scattered among the quaint shops not far from campus. But the hottest spot, the one place other than Paris where she would’ve died to have her paintings hung, was New York City. Downtown Manhattan on Broadway or Fifth Avenue or one of the streets adjacent to Central Park and the Metropolitan Art Museum.

  In that instant, Ashley knew what she had to do.

  She thought about it while she returned to the kitchen and finished dinner for Cole. Thought about it after she put him to bed and throughout the long night when all she could imagine was how she would do it and who she would talk to and what she would say.

  She had the next morning off, and by then, she had a plan.

  With Cole busy ou
t back, she sat at her computer, went on-line, and made a comprehensive list of galleries in New York City. Then she phoned them one at a time and explained her situation. She was an artist with experience in Paris and a roomful of original pieces.

  The responses were varied:

  “We’re full.”

  “The gallery down the street’s looking for new talent. Call them.”

  “Four years’ gallery experience is a must before anyone here would be interested.”

  But Ashley didn’t give up. For the next week she used every spare moment to contact galleries. With each passing day she fought discouragement, fought the memory of Jean-Claude’s voice and the fact that she’d never been so bold as to take a single painting to even a local gallery since coming home from Paris. If she was going to work at it like Landon worked at fires—like Kari worked at helping people and Erin worked at teaching and Brooke worked at medicine—then she could hardly let a few rejections stop her.

  At the end of her second week of phone calls she got a bite.

  “Do you have a Web site?”

  A Web site! Ashley’s heart jumped, and she had to slow herself down so her words didn’t jumble. She had all the material for a Web site. It wouldn’t take Erin’s husband more than a few hours to put the digital pictures of her artwork onto a simple Web site.

  “I should have it up by the end of the week.” She closed her eyes and grinned. “But I can send you a few pictures of my work by E-mail if you want.”

  The woman at the other end yawned, and the sound of someone typing filled the line. “Umm, E-mail. Right, okay. Sure.” She rattled off an address. “Send it to me and I’ll get back to you in a few weeks.”

  Ashley hung up, E-mailed photographs of ten of her best pieces to the New York gallery, and seconds later had Sam on the phone, convincing him to come by after work and bring Erin. She’d serve dinner and visit with Erin while Sam put together a Web site for her.

  “It’s about time, Ashley.” He was at work, but he didn’t seem rushed.

  “Meaning what?” She sat back in her chair, dazed by the number of calls she’d made that week.