His Winter Rose and Apple Blossom Bride (36 page)

Chapter Eleven

M
ichael closed the door to Tati’s room with a sigh of relief. Finally he’d get a few minutes alone with Ashley. He prayed for the right words to explain and realized there wasn’t a good way to say it.

“The tree looks good, don’t you think?” She looked at him with her big silver eyes and his heart started doing somersaults. “Tatiana did a great job with the popcorn strings and her star is very pretty.”

“Ashley, I—”

“It’s getting late. I should probably get moving.” She rose, sidestepped him and headed for the door.

“Wait!”

From the way she came to a stop he knew he’d surprised her but he had to tell her—now.

“Will you let me explain about the carving?”

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Michael. Your private life is your own business.”

The tinge of hurt frosting the edges of those words hit him hard and he wished he’d handled this before. But regrets did no one any good.

“Please?”

She studied him for several moments, finally nodded. He motioned to the sofa and she sat, but on the edge, as if she couldn’t wait to leave.

“I’ve been trying to carve for ages,” he began. “I earned my teaching degree, used it for a few years, but I wanted to carve. So I spent two years in New York working with Hans Leder. Have you heard of him?”

Dumb question.

“Who hasn’t?” She tipped her head to one side. “He doesn’t usually take students. You must have impressed him. After seeing your work I can understand why.”

“I didn’t carve faces then. I was more into sculpture. I even had a showing.” He swallowed. “It didn’t go well.”

“First showings often don’t.” She leaned back in the chair. “Go on.”

“Actually it went very badly. Hans tried. He talked to several galleries, even arranged for some of my pieces to be shown along with his. That was a mistake. The reviews were less than kind. I went back to teaching.”

“But you didn’t quit carving.”

“I couldn’t. Somehow the wood just kept calling.” He laughed at himself. “That sounds stupid, but it’s how I felt.”

“It’s not an unusual feeling for a creative person.”

“I guess. Anyway, I was teaching math then. A girl came into my class midterm. Her name was Maria. She was fourteen and she had brain cancer. Inoperable.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes. Maria knew she didn’t have much longer, but she wanted to spend as long as she could being what she called ‘normal.’” He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and remembered. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who touched my spirit so deeply. Her face would wrinkle, she’d get this determined look in her eye and push for an explanation until the concept was clear to her. She was a delight to teach.”

He opened his eyes to see if she understood. Ashley sat watching him, her face expressionless, except for those expressive eyes. They shone with unshed tears.

“Maria wasn’t pretty but she was beautiful. Do you know what I mean?” Michael saw her nod. “From the inside, radiating out. You’d start out feeling so badly when you saw her return day after day, thinner, paler, wasting away. But Maria would have you laughing in a minute and then she’d join in.”

“I wish I’d known her.”

“I do, too. Anyway, I became intrigued by her personality and one evening I was fooling with a piece of wood. I could see her face in it and I began to carve her as I’d first seen her. When I was finished that, I carved another and then another, trying to catch a certain look, a glint, a spark in the likeness. She died two days after school dismissed for the summer.”

“The cancer finally took over. That’s sad.”

“It was. Her death prodded me back into carving in a new way. I began to look at the world through Maria’s eyes and because of her I saw things in people’s faces, things others ignored.”

“Your pieces do have fantastic insight. It’s like they ask you to look behind what everyone else sees.” Her gaze never left his face. “I understand wanting the time and space to create, Michael, but that doesn’t explain why you couldn’t tell me. Or why you had to keep it a secret.”

“It wasn’t really a secret,” he muttered. “Okay, it sort of was.”

“Because?”

It was confession time. “That showing I told you about—it did a number on my ego.”

“I can imagine.”

“But it was more than that.” He ran his fingers through his hair, remembering the depths his soul had plummeted to. “I was so certain that carving was what I was supposed to do, and so I plunged into it, believed I had a future. When I read those reviews I felt abandoned, as if God was mocking me. Like everyone else was.”

Ashley said nothing, allowing him to feel his way through.

“Maybe that’s why I became infatuated with Carissa. She was a success, doing what she loved, acclaimed all over the world.”

“And next to her you felt like a failure.”

“I
was
a failure.” He swallowed. “At first she reminded me of Maria, always laughing, relishing life. I grabbed and held on. It was only after we were married that I saw beneath the mask.”

He paused, recalling that day as clearly as yesterday. Carissa had been sitting in the hotel room, so silent he’d wondered about her mental state. Then a fan had arrived.

“Tell me, Michael.” Her soft encouragement drew the words from him.

“Carissa came alive when she danced. She lived for the ballet. Without it she was lost. I realized that she’d left New York, and me, because I asked too much of her. I needed too much and she couldn’t give it. No one could. It’s something I had to find within myself.”

“Except that you have a daughter now.”

Michael nodded, wishing there was a way to avoid discussing his ex-wife. He never had before. But Ashley was different. He needed her to understand.

“Yes. But with Tati came the same old feelings—the need to prove that I was good enough, as good as her mother. That I was excellent at one specific thing.”

“It sounds like you were in competition with your ex-wife.”

Shame washed over his face. “In a way I guess I am.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you heard Tati? My mommy this and my mommy that.” He felt like a fool saying it, but in another way it was a relief to get it out. “She idolized Carissa. How do I compare to that, Ashley?”

“Why do you have to?” She leaned forward to study him. Her voice dropped. “Carissa is gone. You are Tatiana’s father. Every night you get to tuck her into bed, listen to her prayers, kiss her cheek. Isn’t that enough?”

“No.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I know it sounds stupid, but when she talks about going to the theme park in Paris or spending Christmas in the Alps—I have nothing to compare to that.”

“And you want to.” She wasn’t asking. “You want to hear her brag about you. But she does, Michael.”

“Yeah, she talks about the sets we’re building or the cupcakes—stuff like that. Stupid little things that—”

“Mean the world to her,” she whispered. “You put aside your hopes and dreams, took the teaching job to support you both. When you have a spare moment, you spend it on the wood. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. You’re doing more than a lot of men who have a wife to help them.”

She didn’t understand. How could she?

“It isn’t enough.” He was going to come clean and he prayed Ashley would understand. “I had a plan, you see. I figured that if I had enough pieces and a gallery would choose some that I’d risk it again, one last time. I’d hold another showing. If I blew it—well, then I’d know I misread God, that I wasn’t good enough, never would be.”

“But I could have helped you with that. You know I have connections with a number of galleries. Why didn’t you ask?”

He huffed his disgust. “I wasn’t going to be another hanger-on, Ashley, like Kent.”

“You’re nothing like Kent.”

He ignored that, begging her to see it through his eyes.

“Since you’ve come here, how many people have stopped you on the street, asked you to look at what they’re doing? How many more since you’ve started work on the gallery?”

“Lots of them.” Her mouth pursed. She shook her head at him. “I’m not going to lie and tell someone their stuff is good if I don’t think it is, but at the same time, I want the opportunity to be the first to show artists from Serenity Bay. That’s what my gallery is about.”

The glint of hurt in her eyes forced him to realize she was on the wrong track. There could be no pretending now. Either he told her the truth and looked a fool or Ashley believed he thought her gallery wasn’t good enough.

“I’m scared. Okay?” He kicked his toe against the carpet, hating the words.

“What?” She stared at him as if he’d just asked her to swim in the bay.

“I said I’m scared. I wanted to keep my little secret in the back room, get those carvings done and ship them off to someone who doesn’t know me.”

“Ah.” She actually had the nerve to smile. “I see.”

“I don’t think it’s funny.”

“I do. I’m the one who’s been confiding her fears and you’re telling me you’ve been keeping your own secret.” Ashley wagged a finger at him. “That’s not playing fair.”

“It’s not about fairness. It’s about taking the risk, doing what I told myself I’d do and living with the consequences. If what’s in there is a lot of garbage, then I’ll know and I can forget about my silly dreams.”

“It’s not garbage, Michael. Far from it.”

It was his turn to smile. “Thank you. You’re very kind. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t pin my hopes on that.”

“Are you deliberately trying to be offensive?” she demanded. “I’ve scouted out some of the best pieces for a number of galleries across the country. I think I know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m sure you do.” He leaned over, brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “But you’re not exactly impartial, Ashley.”

“Oh. So I’d lie, tell you it was good even if it wasn’t? That’s insulting.”

“I didn’t mean it to be. I just meant—” Michael struggled with the appropriate words. “You wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings. Believe me, I appreciate that.”

“And if I did?” She rose, stood glaring at him. “If I told you that your work is nice, pretty, but it isn’t the kind of work a gallery can promote, not the sort of carving anyone will long to collect—if I told you that, what would you do?”

“Stop carving.” He didn’t even have to think about it.

“Finally some truth.” She slapped her hands on her hips, her eyes frosty. “That’s why you kept it a secret, Michael. Not because of any of your silly reasons, but because you’re afraid you’ll have to hand your dream over, put it in someone else’s hands. And if they say it isn’t great, you’re willing to stop doing what you love. That’s really sad.”

“I just want to get enough done for a show,” he tried to explain, rising to follow as she left the room. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t need to ask. She was headed for the workroom. His workroom.

“Ashley, I—”

“Hush!” She quelled his protest with one glare. He’d never seen her so angry. She picked up a sculpture of Tati. “What were you thinking of when you did this? You weren’t thinking of a showing then, were you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“I can tell. It’s a work from your heart.” She set that one down, picked up another of his daughter. “This one is for your show, isn’t it?” She inclined her head, waited for his nod. “Do you know how I can tell?”

“No.” Her intuition amazed him.

“Then I’ll tell you. It’s not that it isn’t good. It is. Very good. But the sparkle is missing. The little whimsical tilt to the eye or the uplift of the nose—I don’t know. It’s just not there. This piece is more intricate than the first, much more difficult, I’m sure. But it doesn’t have the same presence. I can’t hear her laughter when I look at it.”

“Oh.” Michael sat down, feeling as if he’d been sucker-punched and couldn’t catch his breath.

Ashley’s face softened. She walked over to stand in front of him, put her hand under his chin to force him to meet her gaze.

“I know you want a showing, Michael. You want to prove that you have what it takes, you want to stuff the critics’ words in their faces and show the world. You want the satisfaction that a successful show would give, the approval sticker that you interpreted God’s plan for your life correctly.”

“Yes.”

“But most of all I think you want to give Tati something to brag about, to get yourself onto an equal footing with Carissa, maybe even show her up. Why? Because of the way she handled Tati?”

He said nothing, because he couldn’t deny it.

“I’m not saying these pieces wouldn’t give you acclaim. Any gallery would take them and be happy to sell them.” She leaned in, her breath whispering across his cheek. “But is that enough for you? You have so much more to give. A God-given talent to see beyond, inside, to the heart, and to let us see there too, if we’re intuitive enough to look.”

Her quiet words humbled him.

“Stop thinking about showing your work, Michael. Think about what’s hidden in the wood, what you want to reveal. That’s when you’ll know you’ve fallen in with God’s plan. That’s when the sparkle will burst out of your work and draw in people who just want to see it. That’s the reason Tati will be proud.”

He rose, drew her into his arms, rested his chin on her head.

“You are a very smart woman, Ashley Adams.”

“I know art,” she shot back. “Plus, I’m very good at telling other people what they should do. Just not so good at following my own advice. But I’m trying.” She tipped her head, met his gaze. “I’m really trying.”

He wanted to kiss her.

But a rap on the front door drew them apart.

“Can you see who that is?” he asked. “I’m just going to check on Tati, make sure we haven’t disturbed her.”

“Okay.” She walked out of the room, leaving him alone to get himself together.

Michael closed the studio door and was about to enter Tati’s room when a sharp cry pieced the silence of the house.

“Go away!”

His walk toward the front door turned into a run as Ashley’s terrified voice begged for help.

“Michael! Make him go away.”

* * *

Oh God, please help.

Ashley backed away from the door, away from the face that, no matter how much she prayed, never left her dreams. She pasted herself against the wall, slid along it until she came to the kitchen. She ducked inside, grabbed a knife from the block as if it could protect her from the monster at the door.