Let Him Have His Moon

Gavin Henson had spent five years as a wildlife painter and collected more awards than I could count.

The year my father lay in the ICU, I begged him to paint one portrait of my dad, something to keep.

He only turned the pen over in his fingers and answered, flat.

"Painting people ruins my feel for animals. You can generate one with AI."

I swallowed the heat rising in my eyes, and I never brought it up again, not even after my father died.

Two days ago was the anniversary of his death. I went back to pay my respects, and to tidy the old house while I was there.

And under the cabinet in the study, I found a whole box of sketchbooks.

Fifty of them. Fifteen hundred sheets of paper, and every last drawing was the same woman.

Naomi Sullivan. The copywriter on his team.

Naomi dozing, tucked against a car seat.

Naomi in tears at the sight of an animal cub being taken by a predator.

Naomi sitting on the hood of a car, her face tipped up to the moon.

Every one different. Every stroke fluid.

And in the bottom right corner of the one with the moon, a small line of writing.

"You watch the moon. I paint the moon."

I closed the sketchbook and stood.

I stretched up on my toes and took down the photo from my coming-of-age day, the one of my father and me with Gavin, and I cut him out of it.

Since he'd already found his moon, then I, this dark cloud, ought to clear off too.

...

I contacted a lawyer to ask about divorce, then replied to the design firm's job offer.

I'd just shut the laptop when the keypad lock beeped at the door.

Gavin came in with the waterproof painting pack on his back, damp all over.

Same as always. He kicked his mud-caked boots off in the entryway, dumped several days' worth of clothes on the floor, and tossed the words at me without so much as looking up.

"It's been raining a lot lately, the clothes are all silt and mud, the machine won't get them clean. Scrub them by hand."

Then he headed for the kitchen, saw the cold stove and empty pots, and turned back around.

"Didn't I tell you ahead of time I was coming home?"

I stood, dug a packet of instant ramen out of the snack cabinet, and set it on the table.

"Make it yourself. I don't have time."

He paused.

All these years, whenever he came back, no matter the season, no matter what hour his flight landed.

I always made the dishes he liked, watched him finish, cleared the bowls and chopsticks with quiet satisfaction, and only then went back to my room.

He stared at that packet of ramen, his brows drawing tight.

"Valerie Stanley, you sit around this house all day doing nothing, and you're telling me you don't have time to cook?"

I poured a glass of water and leaned against the counter.

"Even if I had the time, I wouldn't want to."

Gavin pressed his lips together. His gaze landed on the calendar on the wall, on the date I'd circled in red, as if something had just come back to him.

"All because I didn't go see your dad?"

I didn't answer. I set the glass down, tied my hair back with an elastic, and walked toward the bathroom.

He threw the ramen into the trash. His voice dropped low.

"Valerie, I run myself ragged every single day, on edge every waking minute, and I come home to your attitude?"

"Your father's been gone for years. You keep circling around a dead man. What's the point?"

I stopped. I turned to look at him.

"Paying respects a few times on the holidays is circling around him? Then what do you call eating and sleeping out there with someone else every day?"

A low laugh scraped out of Gavin's throat, the look on his face saying he'd known it all along.

"Naomi is my copywriter. If she doesn't travel with me, how is she supposed to write anything that fits my style and my vision? And it's dangerous out there. I can't just leave her to fend for herself, can I?"

He said it while sizing me up, then let his eyes slide away.

"Forget it. You wouldn't understand anyway."

That tone, that expression. I knew them too well.

It was the same face he made whenever someone said they couldn't grasp the composition and the ideas in his paintings.