Three months ago, he’d blown in the door of Full Cup, marched to the counter, and slapped a flyer down in front of her as she counted money in the register. He stared at her until she looked up.
“You made me lose count,” she told him.
“This is more important.” He jabbed the flyer with his finger. “You need to do this.”
She stuck the money back in the register, closed the drawer, and glanced down at the piece of paper.
HALCYON ARTIST RETREAT IS A CALM REFUGE HIDDEN
IN THE PRISTINE AND PROTECTED SINGER CREEK
NATURE PRESERVE NEAR THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA.
WE OFFER THE GIFT OF TIME, SPACE, AND BEAUTY TO
PURSUE THE ART THAT MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” He arched a thick gray eyebrow, his mouth set in a straight line.
“I’d never get in.”
“Lucky for you, I’m on the advisory committee. But you won’t need my help—your work will speak for itself.” She held up her hand but he continued. “Before you ask, they offer scholarships, and being on the committee means I have input regarding who gets them.” He tapped his finger on the flyer. “This is a great opportunity for you.”
She glanced back down at the flyer. The bold print at the bottom said artists could stay as long as they wished—as briefly as two weeks all the way up to the full eight weeks. Eight weeks of solitude? Too heavenly—too terrifying—to even consider. Not to mention impossible.
“You’ve been looking for a way to get back into your photography, and this is a solid chunk of time of nothing but that. Plus you’d have a photography mentor there. I know him. He’s good. Little rough around the edges, but that might not bother you.”
“This sounds amazing, but if you remember, I have two small people to take care of. What would I do with them for even one week?”
“Details.” He waved his hand in the air. “We can work all that out. Look, just go to the website, read what people say about Halcyon. It doesn’t get better than this. And you have to drive through Alabama to get there—isn’t that where your sister lives?”
Jenna nodded absentmindedly. One photo on the flyer showed a lake at dusk, cabins in the distance, a ring of people sitting around a small campfire. Sparks like fireflies shooting up in the air. Dark trees reaching toward the sky. Another showed a woman standing before a huge canvas set against a backdrop of thick oaks dripping with Spanish moss. It all reminded her of another life. But that was a lifetime ago.
“I don’t think so.” She pushed the piece of paper back across the counter.
He stared at her without taking it. “Jenna, you have the best, most natural untaught talent I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. It’s time to get back to it. Drawing hearts in milk foam doesn’t count as art.”
A loud horn from behind jolted her from her thoughts. In her rearview mirror, she caught the rude gesture from the driver behind her and held her hand up in apology. Her speedometer told her she was going thirty in a fifty, annoying everyone around her. She sped up and shook her head to clear away Max and his insane ideas. Just before turning onto her street, she heard a ding, her car’s polite way of telling her she was low on gas.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she murmured.
She’d had to pay for the girls’ summer extended-day programs this pay period and her next paycheck wasn’t until Friday. She dragged her free hand through her hair. She felt like one of those hamsters on a spinning wheel, going faster and faster but never actually going anywhere. No fancy art retreat would fix that.
At home Jenna opened the front door expecting Walsh’s thirty pounds to careen around the corner and into her arms as she did every day, but today it was quiet. Kendal sat on the couch, wiping her nose, her eyes still red and puffy as pillows, her cell pressed to her ear. Pull yourself together, she wanted to tell the poor girl.
“Kendal?”
Kendal jumped up. “Oh, Miss Sawyer, I didn’t hear you.” To her boyfriend, she said, “I gotta go. I guess I’ll just see you around.” Ex-boyfriend, apparently.
As Kendal gathered her things, Jenna dropped her purse on the table and found Addie on the floor in her bedroom surrounded by a pile of pink and purple Legos.
“Mommy! Will you help me put this castle together?”
“In a minute. Where’s your sister?”
Addie shrugged. “She was in here but she left to find more Legos.”
Jenna’s heartbeat picked up as she went room to room looking for Walsh. She pulled back the shower curtain and peeked behind the couch, checking all the normal hiding places. In her tiny house, it only took a few seconds to realize Walsh wasn’t inside.
“Kendal, where’s Walsh?”
“I— She’s not with Addie?”
“No. When’s the last time you saw her?” Jenna tried to keep her voice from rising.
“I don’t know,” Kendal said, panic creeping into her own voice. “It’s been a little while. I thought they were both in Addie’s room.”
“I’ve told you, you have to know where Walsh is all the time.”
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Addie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her brow scrunched in worry, a familiar sight on her older daughter’s sweet, sensitive face.
Jenna crossed the room and threw open the front door, calling Walsh’s name. Again. Again. She checked the bushes around the side of the house where Walsh liked to look for ladybugs and the tree next door that she liked to pretend she could climb. After a few minutes, she was walking up and down the sidewalk yelling Walsh’s name. Finally, she
