“Not without coffee first,” she said. “Out of my way.”
He wandered into the front room. She poured herself a big joe and grabbed half a croissant and followed. The sun was already streaming through the top tier of windows, another blue-sky day. “It’s nice to share a beautiful morning,” she said.
“Indeed.” He turned from looking at the tree taking up her postage-stamp back yard, and took her in. “You know, Miss May, I believe you need a vacation.”
She stopped mid-chew. “I believe I need to sit down. So, you’ve solved all your own troubles and now you’re moving on to improving the lots of the rest of us?” She licked the last of the delicious butter taste off her fingers.
He watched her a moment and then answered. “Couldn’t hurt.”
“I’m fine.” Except she nearly shouted it.
He handed her his half-empty coffee cup. Turning toward her big easel, he flicked the canvas cover off the painting there.
Both cups threatened to slosh. May put them on the paint table. “I suddenly remember why I hate having visitors.”
“Looks to me like you should have more of them. A black painting, on a field of black. And here, where you’ve scraped the paint off, what are you going to put there? No, let me guess. More black.”
She covered the painting back up, as if it were a bird that would fall silent when you covered up her cage. “It’s a work in progress, a process painting. I don’t need to explain it to you.”
“How long have you been working on this?”
“Not long. Six months, a year, I don’t know.” She saw the corner of his mouth turn down, the patent disbelief in his eyes. Already, her damn tears were coming.
“Leave me alone. I didn’t invite you here.” She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. She picked up his coffee, her stupid artist mug, and threw the stuff at him. The liquid hit the face of her penguin on the T-shirt, as if she’d intended to feed it to him.
He looked down, pulling the shirt away from his skin, and then back to her. “You do remember this is your shirt, right?”
May’s breathing rippled into laughter, crazy laughter, cackle to guffaw to hard sobbing. She swayed on her feet. Her feelings had her balance confused.
He pulled the soaked shirt off and scooped her up. As he carried her to the already-made-up futon, she tried to tell him that the terry robe would have soaked up the liquid, but her vocal cords weren’t making word-sounds at the moment.
He sat in the middle, sliding her butt to the side but keeping hold of her under the shoulders. He hugged her so close her tears fell on his skin, too.
It wasn’t as if May hadn’t cried about all the things that had happened, but this cry was of a different hue. He stroked her hair, from temple to under her ear, again and again. At last, the tears ran out, and her sobs quieted enough she could hear his heart’s steady, steady rhythm. She closed her eyes.
Already the shame was rising, and soon she’d need to back up and set some boundaries with this man, this stranger, really. But another thirty seconds wouldn’t hurt anyone. She let his warmth soak into her, ease some of the weary pain blocking her heart.
“You lost someone,” he said, voice warm across the top of her head. No tears left, she only shivered as if her body was trying to shake off the memory. As if.
He had stopped stroking her hair, and now his hand stroked her chin, her shoulder, her arm, and up and around again. She concentrated on the sensations, quieting the chaos of memories in her mind.
“My baby. She wasn’t born yet, but she was still my baby.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. The rhythm of his touches did not break.
“She was 20 weeks, something. We’re not sure. The father, he wasn’t interested, you know. So I, I was going to give her up.”
“Give her up?”
“Adopt her out. To a good family. Like I was. A better life.”
“You didn’t think you could give her a good life?” His voice was soft, but hearing the words out loud for the first time she felt how deep they cut.
“I wanted to give her everything I would never be able to afford. Especially two parents.”
“You weren’t good enough for her?”
“Not even good enough to hold onto her for nine months.” Her throat stopped working, and the words choked off.
He stilled, and then squeezed her tight. He pulled her up and against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder so she could see the sunshine.
“What if she knew? What if she thought I didn’t want her?” What if the paints had poisoned her? May had switched to acrylics, but who knew how long baby-toxins remained in the air. She closed her eyes as he cradled the back of her head.