The Widow's Season by Laura Brodie Read Free Book Online Page A

beautiful work.” He crossed the room and looked over her shoulder. “When we were kids he was always drawing—everything he saw—people, plants, things in the house. He said he’d be an artist when he grew up.”
    Sarah nodded. “He was still considering it in college. But he didn’t think he could support himself as a painter. Or he couldn’t support a family.”
    But there had been no family. No soft-skinned infants. No baby hands with dimples where the knuckles should have been. No orthodontist bills or college savings plans, soccer camp or music lessons. Only an increasingly dissatisfied wife, turning inward.
    “I think it was a cop-out,” Nate went on. “People who sell themselves short always use the family as an excuse. He should have stuck with his dreams.”
    Of course, thought Sarah. How easy it is to romanticize the life of the artist when you’re driving your Mercedes back to your luxury condo.
    “He was a very good doctor.” She flipped past David’s portrait, into more landscapes.
    “Yes, but there are lots of very good doctors around.” Nate wouldn’t let it go. “Painting was his gift. He should have kept at it.”
    Should have, should have—her life’s mantra. She pulled out a landscape, the view from the back of their cabin. To the right, a fishing pole leaned against the railing of a short dock. To the left, the river disappeared behind a row of sycamores.
    “Have you been back to the cabin?” Nate asked.
    “Margaret and I went out there the week after the flood. I had a notion that I wanted to lie down on the last bed that David slept in. You could see where he had been the night before, the covers were just yanked up, and the sheets were poking out.”
    Nate smiled. “David never liked to make his bed.”
    “Yes, so I tucked the sheets under the mattress and straightened out the bedspread. I folded the covers down and fluffed the pillows. I guess it was sort of silly, but Margaret was great. She helped unplug all the appliances and empty the trash. David left a lot of stuff like apples and bread and milk, so we had to clean out the refrigerator. And on the easel there was an unfinished painting of geese on the river. One brush was still soaking in a jar of water, like he thought he’d come back in a few days.”
    Why was she telling him all of this? Her shoulders trembled and Nate stretched out his arms, but she held up her palm. “It’s all right, I’m okay.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
    “Do you think you’ll go back there again?”
    She nodded. There was something appealing about the cabin’s solitary quiet, the retreat from Jackson’s manicured fishbowl. “I’ll have to go back, because I left David’s paintings on the walls, and I’ll need them for the exhibit.”
    “I got your note about that. When is the opening?”
    “In about three weeks, on the Friday before Thanksgiving. You should be getting a postcard in the mail any day now. Have you ever seen the local gallery?”
    “No.”
    “It’s not much compared to what you’d find in Washington or New York, but it’s nice enough. The owner, Judith Keen, used to be a curator at the National Gallery before she moved out here. She’s a friend of ours.”
    “Acquaintance” was more accurate. Judith hadn’t even known that David painted until she came to the house in August on a condolence call. Normally Judith shied away from locals who pursued art as a casual hobby. They came a dime a dozen in Jackson—retired women who roamed cow pastures with brushes and palettes and folding chairs.
    Sarah had been surprised when Judith pitched the idea of a one-man show. The gesture seemed too sentimental for the high-brow curator, with her tight skirts and high heels and blouses all black and white like some sandy-haired version of Cruella de Vil. Her gallery was supposed to be a beacon in the wilderness, and the most David had ever done with his art was to donate a few paintings to local