He put his hand over hers on his arm, bound her to him as the wide swath of sunlight made its final arc across the floor, just as the chariot and its stallions would. "The horses will look like they're racing through an arena." Shining, alive. Like her.
And then, in the next moment, it was gone, leaving the fountain in the shade of the building's façade. But he could still see the brilliant vision as if it were a mirage lingering on his horizon.
"It will be spectacular," he told her. "You will be."
He felt the slightest tremble of her hand beneath his, before she took a deep breath, then smiled into his eyes and said, "That's the plan."
* * *
Francine Ballard's gnarled fingers gripped the walker's handles. Charlie's natural tendency was to let her mother hang on to her, so that Charlie could keep her steady and safe. But her mother had to do things on her own, and since Charlie was a chip off the old block, she understood that was better for her mother's wellbeing.
"Just two more passes along the hallway," her mom said. She walked the halls four times a day for exercise. Use it or lose it, she always claimed. And it was true that without the workout, she would have been in a wheelchair years ago.
As soon as Sebastian had brought her home from their excursion to the city, Charlie had jumped in her dusty old truck and rattled across the Dumbarton Bridge to Fremont. She couldn't wait to tell her mother all about her new project, but for the next few minutes she didn't want to break her concentration.
"Hello, Gladys," her mom called through an open door as they passed.
"You go, girl," the gray-haired lady called back. "Hi, Charlie." Gladys was ninety and bedridden, and she loved soap operas in the afternoon. She could recite everything that had happened over the last ten years on each of her favorite shows as if the characters were her relatives.
Charlie's mom had lived at Shady Lane for the last two years. But there was no shade, no lane, and no garden. There were only concrete walls, linoleum floors, beige paint, the underlying scent of cleaning fluids and medicines, and the competing sounds of too many televisions tuned to different channels.
Charlie had come to her parents late in life, and she'd still been a toddler when her mom was diagnosed with severe degenerative osteoarthritis. Though she'd been in her early forties, Francine's joints had begun to collapse. After years of pain and increasing loss of use, she'd had her first operation in her fifties to fuse three of the vertebrae in her spine. She'd soon had to give up sewing and needlework, which had been her joy. Since then she'd had all the joints in her fingers replaced, except the pinkies, which were etched into a permanent curl. Her ankles had disintegrated and were now held together by steel and bolts and staples.
But at seventy, her mother still walked a mile of hallway every day. Because Francine Ballard never gave up.
Charlie smiled at her mother as she moved at a snail's pace beside her, her mom's head barely coming to her chin now that years of arthritis had compressed her spine. "Okay, I need a short rest before I finish my walk." Her mother plunked her bottom down on the walker. In a compartment beneath the seat, she kept a book and a purse with her reading glasses, tissues, a brush, and her lipstick. Today's outfit was a skirt and sweater set in a dusty rose color. She had her hair done once a week in the nursing home's salon, and Charlie did her nails when she visited. It didn't matter that her fingers were bent in odd directions, her mom loved the pretty pink polish.
After resting a minute, she said, "Okay, I'm ready to keep going now."
Charlie put her hand beneath her mother's elbow and helped her up so that they could steer back into the central hall. This wasn't a bad place, but the staff was overworked and didn't have time for anything extra. The residents never went on outings. The food, though nutritious, was often unidentifiable. The worst, though, was the lack of anywhere to sit outside, to smell the flowers and get a little sun to heat old bones. Charlie often took her mom out for lunch or to a nearby park, but those excursions weren't the same as having a lovely garden she could go to whenever she wanted. She knew her mother would adore the gardens at the Los Gatos facility. Instead of walking institutional hallways, she could stroll through lush greenery and fragrant flowers and read her book in the shade of a leafy tree, in the gazebo, or by the koi pond.
At the end of the hall, her mother let out a long, satisfied sigh. "Another lap done. Let's sit in the lounge." Francine shared a room with Rosemary, who was nearly deaf and had the TV on so loud, Charlie couldn't think, though thankfully it didn't seem to bother her mother at all.
They parked her walker outside the lounge, and her mom made her way to the sofa, moving hand by hand across each chair back she passed, while Charlie brewed tea. She'd brought china mugs with her because her mother claimed tea tasted better in bone china, especially if the cups had been warmed with hot water. For herself, Charlie pushed the whipped coffee button, creating foam on the top, then added milk and sugar to both her mother's cup and her own.
At the opposite end of the lounge, a TV blared for the six residents seated in front of it. A sallow-skinned lady, who must have been new since Charlie didn't recognize her, slept in an overstuffed chair kitty-corner to the sofa her mother had chosen.
Charlie carried the two flowered mugs, setting her mother's on the coffee table. "I brought your favorite." From the shopping bag she'd slung over her arm, she pulled a pink box from a fabulous bakery only a few blocks away, two china plates, and pretty paper napkins, then placed one half of an almond bear claw on the china. In the old days, her mother had made the most delicious pastries. But she'd had to give up baking when the pain of standing too long became excruciating, not to mention what all the measuring, mixing, and spooning had done to her fingers.
"This is so yummy." Her mother savored the pastry in little bites, enjoying every morsel. "Now tell me what has you positively glowing."
Charlie had known her mother would see what she was feeling. Glowing was the perfect word for it. "I've got a new commission. A really big one."
"That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you, honey. You deserve it."
Just like her father, Charlie's mother had always believed in her art. They'd lost her dad to cancer seven years ago. She and her mother had taken care of him together at the end, with the help of Hospice, who'd come in twice a day. As close as she and her mother had been before, that difficult time had forged an even deeper bond between them.
"Tell me all about the commission."
Tell me. Sebastian had whispered the words to her, and she'd wanted to tell him everything. Not just about her vision for the chariot, but all the secrets she kept buried down deep. Even from herself.
"My work is going to be shown off in a high-rise in San Francisco at the headquarters of a company called Montgomery Media International."
"That sounds familiar," her mother said, frowning a little as she tried to figure out where she'd heard it.
"Sebastian Montgomery is pretty famous." Charlie had assumed he'd be some glib TV personality, all looks and fast talking, but there seemed to be so much more to him. "He's on TV a lot and in the papers. That's probably why it sounds so familiar."
Charlie felt a thrill just saying his name. Or maybe the thrill came from the heated memory of the moment she'd put her hands on him and said, Do you want it? Even better had been his response. God, yes. I want it all.
Charlie's stomach did a slow roll of desire just from remembering how the sparks had flown like crazy between them that morning. She wanted him with an intensity she'd only ever felt while working on her art-and every sign indicated he felt exactly the same way-but he hadn't crushed his lips to hers. Hadn't given them a first, desperate taste of each other. Instead, he'd asked her if she trusted his intentions. Asked her if she truly believed that he wanted her art as much as he wanted to take her to bed. And when she'd hesitated...
"What does he want you to create, dear?"
Magnificence.
He not only seemed to believe Charlie could do it, but he was also truly determined to make sure she didn't think her six-figure paycheck came with any naked, sexy strings.
"The lobby has an enormous fountain, and I'm going to create a chariot with stallions, a horrendous race, foam flying, dust billowing."
Her mother clapped her hands, her fingers so crooked, they barely made a sound. "Like Ben-Hur. Oh, I loved that movie and Charlton Heston." She sighed dreamily. "He was so handsome." Her mother would have been a teenager when the movie came out. "I take it Sebastian is pleased with your vision?"