Finding Eden(53)

I shook my head. "It had been three years. Everyone thought I was dead for God's sake. Encouraging him to move on wasn't the wrong thing to do."

She considered me for a second. "It was though. With Calder, it was. I have a feeling he could have lived to be ninety-nine and still not have gotten over you. Treasure that."

I turned my head as she walked past me, some delicate-smelling, flowery perfume wafting by.

When she got to the door, she turned her body halfway toward me, but didn't look at me. "You should go look in his studio. I haven't seen what's in there, but I think you should." Then the door closed quietly behind her.

I stood there for a few minutes, just staring at the closed door. Then I turned to walk down the hall, stopping in front of the only door I hadn't been through in his apartment. It must be his studio. I took a deep breath and opened it.





CHAPTER NINE




Calder



Xander and I pushed the door open and walked inside the apartment, slamming it behind us and setting all the take-out bags down on the counter.

I immediately noticed the check sitting there with Madison's name on it, written out to Eden. My breath caught not only with the knowledge that Madison had been here while I was gone, but also at the number written on the check. Could that be right? Holy shit.

"Eden," I called. I paused, being greeted with silence. I frowned and started walking toward the bedroom. I wondered where she was, but that same terror that had gripped me in the bowling alley when she was out of my sight for three minutes didn't grip me now. Well, that was a good sign.

However, I was just slightly worried Madison had said something that would have upset her. Madison wasn't a mean person, but I'd also never seen her in a situation like this one.

I turned down the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and immediately saw that the door to the one I used for my studio was open. My heart started beating more rapidly. Oh no, Eden. I let out a shaky breath as I turned into the doorway. Eden was standing stock still in the middle of the room, wrapped in a white towel, her head moving slowly in every direction, taking in the paintings surrounding her, some sitting propped against the walls, some hung on the walls, some resting on easels. There were hundreds of them. And they were all of her . . . and the small beginning of a new life I had imagined to be our daughter, the girl next to her on the canvas with the dark hair and blue eyes, the one that had been stolen right from the safety of Eden's body. As it turned out, the only one she'd ever carry. My heart filled with fear over what she must be thinking, what she felt about what she was looking at.

"She'd be about two and a half now," I said very quietly. She must have heard us come in and wasn't surprised to hear my voice behind her.

I felt tense, wary as I watched her. Eden's shoulders slumped very slightly. "She?" she asked.

I nodded. "I always imagined it was a girl. I don't know why. I just did. I do."

She nodded her head, a tear slipping down her cheek, but she smiled softly and wiped it away. "Me, too, actually," she said quietly. "I imagined you knew about her because you were with her. I pictured you together—it soothed me."

She continued to look around, not just at the pictures of her and who I imagined would have been our daughter, but Eden as a young girl, and through the years. The one of her playing Kick the Can, a look of fierce joy on her face as she slid to a halt, reaching one foot toward the can of safety, a bigger kid fast on her heels. The one of her sitting at the front of the temple, one long strand of hair between her fingers as her eyes gazed upward, a small, dreamy smile on her face. The one of her eyes meeting mine, a flush on her cheeks, a morning glory clutched in her hand, the one she'd just picked up from beneath her chair.

"I was going to show you . . ." I trailed off. Eden didn't move.

I tentatively walked closer to her and she moved away, going over to a painting of her hands as I remembered them. My greatest fear had been that I would begin to forget the details of her. And so I painted them, not just the moments we'd shared, but her. Each part of her, like snapshots from my mind. Creating pictures of Eden brought me the only real serenity I'd experienced since I lost her.

"I wondered why my face wasn't in any of the paintings hung up in the gallery," she said softly.

I shook my head, looking down at the hardwood floor. "I couldn't share all of you," I said. "I wasn't ready."

She walked over to a painting of her face, turned to the sun, the beginning of a smile just starting to blossom. She ran her finger down her own cheek, down lower to the small swell of her pregnant belly as it might have looked had she continued to carry our child. Her finger stalled and she took it away, a look of sorrow obvious to me even in her profile.