Without any further discussion, Adam walked out of the room. A second later, she heard the door to the garage shut. In the silence, as the children continued to color, Joyce wiping the counters, and Sharon twisting her fingers in her lap, Carrie heard the rumble of the car engine. The sound hit her like a smack, and she could feel an ache in her chest. Carrie looked at Sharon protectively, wanting to ease whatever was going on in her head. She stopped breathing for a second at the sight of her. Sharon was sitting at the table, turned away from the children, tears sheeting down her face. She was chewing her lip as if it would help stop the tears, but the rims of her eyes were blood red and her face was crumpling under the weight of whatever had caused her sadness. She got up and left the room.
“I’ll be right back…” Joyce said, her words trailing behind her as she lumped the rag on the counter and rushed off after Sharon.
The whole situation made Carrie uneasy, her stomach burning with apprehension. Something more had caused this than just Adam going to work. She sat down next to the children and watched them color, but her mind was elsewhere. She worried for Sharon, and she wondered what was causing such an avalanche of emotion.
“Was Aunt Sharon mad at Daddy?” Olivia asked, still looking down at her paper. She’d drawn a rainbow in the corner of her page, each color one single arched line.
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.
Children, she believed, were no different from adults in understanding emotions and social situations. They were just less experienced with the world. They knew when things weren’t right, and they could tell when adults spoke over them, so Carrie was always careful about that. It was clear that Olivia sensed the tension in the air, even if she hadn’t seen Sharon’s tears. She knew that Joyce’s quick exit after Sharon wasn’t a normal response. Little Olivia just needed help processing what the meaning behind it was, and Carrie couldn’t help her with that.
Just then, Eric came into the kitchen. “Where’s Sharon?” he asked.
“She went upstairs, I think. With Joyce.” Then, in a miming fashion behind the children she mouthed, “She was crying,” while dragging her finger down her cheek.
Confusion clouded his face, and he nodded. Whatever the reason for his visit to the kitchen, she wouldn’t know because he left the room and headed upstairs after his wife.
“It looks like the other grown-ups in the house have some things to work out,” she said carefully to Olivia. “I’m nearly sure that your daddy’s handprints are dry on the canvas. We need to finish that project. By then it’ll be lunchtime. Why don’t we head over to the playroom and we can do a little more painting?”
The children climbed off their chairs and ran toward the playroom. As Carrie followed them, she pictured Adam’s empty office, and she wished he was in there. On the outside, he seemed like a selfish workaholic who didn’t care about anyone—and she wondered if Sharon thought that about her own brother—but there was something about him that told her otherwise. Maybe it was the way his lips pressed together just before he huffed out that little laugh of his, or the way his eyes showed affection and consideration behind them sometimes. Maybe it was the way he’d looked with paint on his face. She was having trouble pinpointing what it was because it was whole bunch of tiny things that when she put them together, gave her a picture of him that was so much more than what he was showing everyone.
When they entered the playroom, Carrie pulled the canvas from the spot on the shelf where she’d put it to dry and set it onto the art table. Two big, red handprints were the only color against the stark white background. Carrie tapped one of the hands to see if the paint was dry, and her finger came back empty of paint. She tapped a few more places—all dry. She remembered the confidence Adam showed in his hands, how still they’d been when he’d pressed them down. Carefully, she put her hand on top of his, noting how his handprint almost swallowed her own. She wondered what it would be like to hold the hand that had made this red print in front of her. Would his touch be as confident?
“Is it dry?” David asked.
Carrie pulled her hand from Adam’s print and looked at her skin. No paint. “Yep. All dry. Here’s what we need to do,” she said, refocusing on the task at hand. “I’m going to get a teal blue color for you, David, and I’m going to paint your left hand. Then, I want you to let me guide it onto your daddy’s left hand, so your print will be inside his.” David held out his hand as Olivia clacked around on the hardwoods in her princess high heels. With a grin in her direction, Carrie dipped the brush into the teal paint. “I’m going to paint your hand just like you painted your daddy’s, okay?”