“You told me what brought you out here before--that you wanted to work on a special project, to give back to a small community during the holidays. But it must be hard to be away from your family right now. They’re in New York?”
“New Jersey.” I keep mixing the blues and purples in a large bucket, making sure the polymer sinks into the paint so that it will stay bright on the wall in the dry air and the dust that comes in the summer. “And yes--I just wanted to do something different.” I glance at Star, and she nods slightly. Her hair is as pitch black as mine, but it’s stick straight, and stray pieces flutter around her face in elegant waves as we work.
“Nothing more than that?” She smiles at me, but it’s more encouraging and kind than bright and cheery. Her nose crinkles slightly, but on her it looks elegant instead of cute.
“No—I—“ I pause and keep painting the night sky, imagining what the stars looked like the first night I arrived in New Mexico. Since then, Rowan and I have fallen into our routines, almost like we’ve known each other for years. “I had a miscarriage. After IVF. My last embryo.” Tears sting my eyes, but they dry quickly in the light wind coming down from the mountains. I look over to Star, and she’s nodding like what I’ve said is completely ordinary—or expected.
Unlike everyone else in my life, she just stays silent, her body poised like she’s ready to listen. All the other people I’ve spoken to--my parents, my sister, even Anna--have fallen all over themselves to apologize, like it’s their fault I can’t get pregnant or carry a baby past six weeks.
“And my husband--my ex-husband for a year now--he left before we even did the last three transfers. I don’t think he could take it. All the loss, and all the debt, and who we’d become.”
“Some people can’t bear the important things, Cadence.” Star starts to mix yellow and white for our veil of stars. We’ll add some into the mix of blue and purple today, and more--many more--next week.
“He didn’t fully understand the ‘for better or worse’ part. They should put in a ‘for fertility or infertility,’ but they don’t tell you this shit before you get married. We were young. Really young. There was no reason to think it wouldn’t work.”
“Sometimes there aren’t reasons. Some people say that everything happens for a reason. But I think shitty things just happen. They’re woven into the fabric of life.” Her voice is measured and comforting, and there’s no need to respond. I start on the green for the mountains and mix a gray-hued white for the snow-capped peaks of the mountains.
“Is that white good?” I ask her after a while of painting and mixing and going back to painting again.
She nods. “It looks like the snow. Not too bright, but not off-white.” She pauses and dips a brush in the paint to look at it. “You’ll be at the fundraiser tomorrow, right?”
“Yes. Will you?”
“I will. My husband’s coming up from the reservation. I take it you’re driving in with Rowan?”
I laugh. *Driving in with him. A tactful thing to say. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“His fiancee left town a month or so back.”
“He was engaged? Oh my God, I had no idea. He’s been--“
“Watching you paint? Hanging on to every word you say?” She laughs, and the sound is mischievous, infectious. “He’s no stranger to sadness these days. That’s all I’m saying. He’s one of my best friends, and I know him. He’s been... different... since you arrived in town, Cadence. Different. Trust me.”
I gulp. I haven’t even talked to Anna about Rowan. As far as she knows through Facetime, I’m living in the guest house and making my own burnt coffee in the mornings. I haven’t even mentioned Rowan, and she hasn’t asked.
*The damn guest house. I saw it the other day, but hell, I didn’t even ask if Rowan’s had it fixed up. Three more weeks out here, and I haven’t asked if I should be staying somewhere else. Should I be? Is this inappropriate?
Star keeps painting like nothing has happened, like we’re just two artists standing side by side in the winter sun, mixing paints and looking at the mural they’ve been designing for the past ten days. And I guess we are, but she somehow got me to spill my biggest secret and inform me about my billionaire cowboy crush and his romantic past in the course of ten minutes. But we settle back into our comfortable silence, and I’m left wondering what she sees in Rowan, and why she decided to mention it to me today.