Farthest House

He came back around the table, the corners of his eyes crinkling ever so slightly against the sharp sunlight. “I love your paintings in the attic.”

She struggled to keep from giving the too-big grin of the fool. “Thank you. My last professor thought I wasn’t challenging myself by always doing portraits.” She wouldn’t add, ‘of females.’ A female painting females—lesser on lesser. “I’ve been told they don’t fit any European model and fall into the category of folk art.” She grinned, “You don’t want to get me started.”

He settled into his chair. “I see them as allegory. They’re arresting, rather mythical.”

“You see what I’m trying to do. You’re good.”

One brow lifted. “‘Good?’ Good for a guy, good for someone who knows nothing about art?”

“Just good.”

“Okay, then.” They both chuckled at the other. “What would you say to hanging one in the university library? The one of Luessy atop the stack of her novels? We have a lot of wall space to fill.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I’m not. It’s the Luessy Starmore Library, and that’s a very arresting and unique painting of her, and it was done by her granddaughter. I think it more than qualifies.”

She wanted to reach across the table and hug him. Fighting tears, she looked out across the flowers. “I’d love it,” she managed.

“I hope I haven’t upset you.”

“No. It’s just things have been so crazy the last few months. Somehow, having even that simple picture displayed feels like a step forward. I’m grateful.”

“Tory says you’re mostly self-taught, and you learned a lot by copying figures from mythology?”

Something almost remembered skimmed Willow’s awareness, but slipped away ungrasped. “Tory has listened to my ranting for two months now.” Was that true? Was she having conversations she didn’t remember? “I did do a lot of copying. While other kids were running up and down soccer fields and splashing in swimming pools, I painted.”

“You didn’t use photographs of the women?”

She framed her face with her fingers, just as she’d isolated areas in art class. She cringed, remembering her hand and recovered. “I stole that idea from Frida Kahlo. The props and clothing come from the scraps of their lives I do know about.” A slight breeze funneled under the roof, and she watched it work like an invisible hand smoothing the front of his shirt. “Now your face,” she said, “tells me your life has been one big picnic.”

“Good guess. A picnic through and through.”

She studied him, half expecting the sun would strike him and he’d disappear like any mirage. “Do you write fiction or strictly biography?”