“You need the work?”
He shrugged.
She drew the coat more tightly around her. “Can I say something?”
“Haven’t stopped you yet.”
She watched him, remembering how he’d been himself—his real self—with her yesterday, once again wishing he wasn’t always so careful about giving her his left side. “You guys talk about your mom,” she said, “like she’s still a part of things here.”
“She is. That’s why I’m asking you to help me with this project. My dad still loves her, but he’s the kind of person who sees the big picture. ‘Get through the grieving and live on.’” He looked into the darkness. “I’ve heard that a hundred times.”
“That can be easier said than done,” she said.
He nodded. “Time has helped.”
He watched her, his dark brown eyes unwavering. She knew the smile they were capable of. Knew there was more to him than she should hope to learn.
The weight of Mark’s request settled on her shoulders like a blanket. The weight of keeping her emotions out of this project. The weight of potentially stepping into his mother’s shoes as an artist and replicating something that connected her to this house. To their lives. To Mark.
“The steaks are about ready,” she said. “Medium-ish?”
He handed her a clean plate, and she grabbed the tongs, her pulse flighty in her veins.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, turning toward her so the light from the porch lit the left side of his face.
“Haven’t stopped you yet,” she answered, bracing herself for the possible questions he could hurl at her now that she’d given him permission.
His high cheekbones and full mouth were the color of a Big Sky sunrise. The knit cap hid the dark mess of hair she’d seen when his hood had fallen at her house. Burns masked his face, but fingerlike scars stretched back from his temple in smooth stripes where no hair grew, and his ear was a patchwork of healed reconstruction.
“How do you do that?” he asked.
“What?”
His brow furrowed. “How do you look at me like that? Like . . .” His voice quieted. “Like you see this every day. Like it doesn’t bother you.”
She frowned and turned off the grill, wondering if she was so different from everyone else in town that he had to ask.
“Lette Mae doesn’t look at you differently. Neither do Nate or Gus. Or your niece. Ivy adores you.”
He gave her a weak smile. “It’s taken a long time for people in this town to look me in the eye, even Nate and Gus. Sometimes people look me so hard in the eye I know they’re trying not to look anywhere else.” He shrugged. “Ivy’s a kid. She was afraid at the beginning. Until she heard my voice.” He lifted his gaze out to the yard. “From that point on, I was her Uncle Mark again. That space, where she didn’t know me, where she cried and hid . . . that was rough.” He cleared his throat. “But you’re the only adult besides my family and my doctors who didn’t shrink back from the beginning. Who didn’t turn away quick when I caught them staring.”
“But you did catch me staring,” she said.
“You didn’t turn away.”
“In this whole town, I can’t be the only one who . . .” She wasn’t sure how to end that sentence.
He helped her out. “In this whole town, you’re the only one who looks at me like a person with burn scars, instead of burn scars walking around like a person.”
She met his gaze, and a few seconds stretched between them. She knew that wasn’t true, but the way he said it, she could see how it could be. The people he grew up with were blinded by who he used to be. The memory of the old Mark got in the way of seeing him now.
“Everyone thinks you’re a hero. That’s who they see.”
“If seeing me as a hero helps them look at me, fine.” He shook his head. “But that’s not me, either.”
Her mind raced for something to say. She hadn’t expected the conversation to go this deep when she agreed to come over. “Well, maybe I’m insane. I’m the insane artist who moves to a small town and turns it upside down because I see people with burn scars instead of burns with people scars. I’m a freaking M. Night Shyamalan movie.” She clamped her mouth shut.
Oh, please, don’t let him be offended by the words that just came out of my mouth.
A smile appeared around his eyes, easing her distress.
“So,” she ventured, “in this movie, do we ever get to eat?”
He stepped back, opening the door for her and letting her pass through. She hadn’t really answered his question, but it seemed to be enough for him.
They sat at the smaller table in the kitchen.
“This smells great,” she said. “I haven’t grilled in forever.”
“That’s a really long time.”
She gave him a wry smile, and he gave one back as he reached for the water pitcher.
His smile turned to a frown of concentration as he carefully filled their glasses. “I’ve had to learn to do more stuff with my left hand. I’m strong enough. It’s the agility. Nerve damage. Pouring water was one of the things I took for granted. Seriously, pouring water.” He shook his head.
“I had a friend who hurt her back. She said the same thing about pouring water. She didn’t have to switch hands, but she had to adjust her balance differently.”
He nodded.
She lifted her glass for a toast. “To pouring water. May we never spill.”
“Or be thirsty,” he said.
“That, too,” she conceded. “Important.”
He smiled fully, then, and she felt a flush of warmth hit her cheeks as she sipped her water. She focused on cutting into her steak.
“So,” he said after a few minutes of silence, “where are you from, Riley Madigan?”
She paused and swallowed her bite. “I’m from a lot of places. I
