He held the glass rotating it and not quite believing his eyes. “That pie-wielding waitress out front looks like Jo.”
“It is Jo. I made likenesses of pretty much everyone in town.”
“You...” He turned his head to look at her. Her face was inches from his. Her gaze was serene, lacking the anger and irritation he’d seen too often lately. She glowed with an inner peace that reminded him of that evening on his porch steps when she woke him to the beauty of a sunset. “You are amazing. A true artist.”
Claire tilted her head back and her laugh rang through the cavernous room. “That’s what I do. I’m a miniaturist. The work may make me crazy at times, but I cannot imagine doing anything more satisfying. It took years to get everyone. And I’m constantly tweaking as children grow and the community changes. Sometimes I work from memory, but I prefer photographs. The kids love hunting for themselves or their parents and grandparents. Their joy is worth any aggravation.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m always in here a bunch of times, five this year. Artist privilege.” Groping her striped overalls, she extracted a laser pointer. “Here I am in my studio when I was twenty.” She moved the laser dot to a building he recognized, Adena’s headquarters. “If you look through the glass, that’s me when I was eight. My grandpa Clem made that one. We’re standing side by side in front of the train display. The train in there actually moves, but I didn’t turn that one on. Grandpa always told me that I was on the train not the tiny one, but the one rumbling around now, so one of the window silhouettes is me. I’m also walking on Main Street. There.”
“And the other?”
Her gaze shifted, her eyes focusing on something far away, if it was there at all.
“Graveside at my Grandfather’s funeral. There, on the hill behind the church. Me, Walter, Bob, and George in our dress coats. It’s a little hard to see and the Belkin geography is off. Bob was right that this scene is too sad to look at, but George suggested this spot, visible if you know where to look.” Her voice hitched as she spoke, as if the words hurt to say aloud.
“Clem sounds like a special man.” Tentatively, he put his hand on her shoulder. He wasn’t sure how she’d react, but he needed to offer her comfort, whether she accepted or not. Rather than pushing him away, she fell against him, sobbing. He wrapped both arms around her, holding her close. Her tears soaked his shirt. He stroked her red and green streaked hair. She had seemed so confident and in control at every other meeting, even when she had been angry in his office, but this was different. Her strength went too deep to be dismissed as a façade, so he wouldn’t call her vulnerability a crack or a flaw.
“Why did he have to go and die on me? First Mom and Grandma, now him. They left me alone, with no one left to love me.” Hearty sobs punctuated each word.
“What about your father?”
“He’s a name on a birth certificate, and I’m pretty sure John Doe isn’t his real name. Clem was my whole family.”
He helped her to the floor, cradling her against him as he leaned against the wall. As messed up as his family was, at least he had names. Her tears eased as her breath slowed to match the pace of his fingers as he caressed her arm and back. The past losses were problems he couldn’t solve. One word resounded in his mind. Alone: that was the keyword for her sorrow and yet so impossibly wrong.
“I don’t see it that way. Claire, did you see how many people turned out to help you move the trains? All those signs of support in your yard? The people who refused me service and trashed my yard?”
“I tried to stop them.” A sea of tears covered her eyes as she looked up at him. He wiped them down her cheek with his thumb.
“And they listened, sort of, because you asked. They went after me because I made you mad.”
“They went after you because of the trains and economics.”
“It’s more than that. They continued after you found this location. If people were only upset about this train it would have stopped sooner because in spite of the extra trouble, the display is happening. For all the grief I heard about increased tax revenue, and how much money everyone makes during this period, the relocated display makes those arguments moot, and yet the forking didn’t stop. Hell, the chief perpetrator was a woman whose social security payment stays the same train or no train.”
With a faint moan, Claire snuggled against his chest, her warmth a pleasant contrast to the cold wall behind him. He rested his chin on her hair. A subtle fruity scent reached his nose, which was much better than the stale body odor lingering elsewhere in the room. Her breath slowed and her shoulder muscles slackened as he rubbed slow circles across her trapezius.
“There’s only one logical explanation for the continuing insanity. Jo, Walter, George, Miss Jones, everyone in this town loves you. Even me.”
The words surprised him. Only as they left his mouth, did he realize how true they were. He loved her and this crazy sushi-bar-free town. She didn’t respond. He tilted his head to look at her. All tension had left her face, and her lip fluttered with each exhale. Thank goodness she’d fallen asleep. As soon as he was done being a human pillow, he had work to do.
Chapter 20
James came back the next day, and the day after that, always at the end of the day and always dropping something in the donation bin. While his money was as good as anyone’s, his presence made Claire twitchy. There was no good reason for him to come night after night. He was spending
