Work of Art (36 page)

“There are things we never knew and manipulations that his family
, and apparently, Mom, was behind,” I said, and then I told him the whole story, from the fake emails to the forged letter to the night I’d told Ryan about Tyler. And by the end, my dad looked angrier than he had before.

“A man has a right to know his son,” he fumed, and I knew the story had hit close to home.

My Mom had manipulated my dad when it came to me, but at least my dad knew his daughter was out there. He’d known I existed. He just didn’t know me, and of course, it hadn’t been too late when I’d found him again. It was too late for Ryan.

“I know, Dad, that’s why I let him ba
ck in. I’m his only link to Tyler, and I can’t even imagine how that feels.”

“
Did you tell him about how Ty liked to help me and how he used to sit and ask me all about cars? And that he loved this place, because it was like a playground for him, and since he couldn’t play outside like other little boys, he was happy here?”

My dad had tears in his eyes as he talked about his grandson.

I nodded, feeling my own tears start to form as I remembered coming to pick Tyler up from the garage. He’d run over to me, take my hand and pull me around to show me all the things he and Grandpa had fixed.

“I told him everything, Dad.”

“So what are his intentions with you?”

My eyes filled even further. “I think he still loves me.”

“And do you love him?”

I nodded a few times. “I do, but I don’t want to get hurt.”

My dad stood up and leaned against the hood of the car, his arms crossed over his chest. “Harper, you have good sense, and I know you would never enter into something just because you were feeling it in here.” He placed his hand over his heart. “You’ll listen to your head just as much, so I know you’ll make the right decision. If this man is who you love, then you should be with him.”

I nodd
ed vigorously but held the tears at bay as I bit my lip. “Okay.”

“Now when do I get to meet him?”

“You want to meet him?”

“He’s my grandson’s father, and from what I remember, he’s also the boy who helped you find me again. Yes, I want to meet him.”

“Okay. He’ll be at the show on Friday night. You can meet him then.”

* * *

When I finally walked in to my shop around two in the afternoon, I thought I had the beginnings of something good for my series. I’d continue to capture moments as I saw them, but I had a good start. I might not end up using any of the shots I took that day, but at least I had direction.

“Hey
Krysta,” I said, as I looked around the front room. There was only one person waiting, so I knew I wasn’t needed. I’d let my guys have the work.

“Hey Harper,” she said, no doubt taking in my windblown appearance.
“Can you ink me today?”

“Do you want something new?”

She nodded eagerly. “Yeah, I saw this picture and Paulie modified it for me, and I want to go with it.”

“Why can’t
Paulie do it for you?”

She blushed. “Because he doesn’t know where I want it, and I sort of want to surprise him.”

I smiled. “Yeah, sure. Give me a few hours, and then come on back. I just want to work on some of these pictures first.”

She grinned. “You’ve got it. Thanks!”

I walked back to the room in the very back of the shop where I kept one of my laptops and all my high-tech photo printing equipment. I wasn’t sure I’d be printing anything that day, but I’d be editing, and I didn’t really want to be home alone.

I closed the door, switched the hanging sign to ‘Occupied’ and
slipped my iPod into the player, turning up The Wallflowers song I’d been listening to before I’d walked into the shop. I blasted music when I worked and everyone knew that, but my room was so far back that I didn’t think they’d be able to hear anything over the punk rock they’d chosen to play out front that day.

I realized when I
put the SD card into my laptop that I’d forgotten all about the pictures I’d taken the weekend of the wedding. And that suddenly gave me an idea.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ryan

I was nervous when I walked into the gallery in Union Square. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and the prospect of seeing Harper again for the first time in three weeks had my stomach in knots.

I was sort of annoyed that Brandon hadn’t been able to come with me, bu
t he had a date with some girl he’d met at the gym, and I guess that was probably a good thing. If everything went right, and Harper agreed to get a drink, I sort of wanted to be alone with her. Brandon’s humor and digs weren’t what I needed when I was trying to put my full effort into winning back the girl I loved.

The gallery was crowded when I walked in, and I stopped short when I saw the
enlarged photographs on the walls. They were incredible. She’d done a series with models who were covered in body art, and she’d photographed them nude. In many instances, they were angled, so you couldn’t see anything revealing, but not entirely. I stopped and stared at the first photograph I’d come to of a woman whose back was on display as she was angled away from the camera. She had the image of two children on her shoulder with their names and the dates they’d lived and died under it and tears flowing down and away from the image, disappearing under her arm. And on her lower back was a verse I recognized from The Bible that read, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’ The photograph was entitled, ‘The Greatest Loss’.

I stared at it for a long time, emotion flowing through me as I stared at the images of the children taken from the world before they had a chance to live, and for the first time since I’d learned about Tyler, I realized I wasn’t alone in my loss. People lost children every day for
reasons out of their control, but the one difference was that they got a little time with those children before they were gone. I’d never gotten that.

A hand on my shoulder startled me. “It’s a powerful piece isn’t it?”

I turned to see Harper standing behind me, holding a glass of champagne. She looked beautiful in a dark purple strapless dress that brought out the purple in her butterfly tattoos, and her long brown hair was curled and swept over one shoulder in a low ponytail. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I kept my hands to myself.

I nodded.
“What happened?”

“Car accident.
The mother survived, but the kids didn’t make it. I wanted to capture the emotion she was feeling the day she came to me for those tattoos. And I didn’t share it with her, but I knew exactly how she was feeling.”

I felt a tugging in my chest. I could only begin to understand what that must have felt like
, and I felt an overwhelming urge to take Harper’s hand.

“You definitely captured it.
Does the pain ever go away?”

Harper
shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. But you learn how to channel it better.” She handed me the glass. “Thank you for coming.”

I swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Would you like to see some of my other pieces?”

I nodded. Truthfully I’d been all over San Francisco in the past three weeks looking at her work. I’d purchase three more paintings for my apartment, and I’d
spent hours online looking at her photographs. I noticed there were none of Tyler for sale, which I understood, and I was glad she’d given me the three photographs she had. I’d had them blown up, and they were now framed and hanging across from my bed, so I saw his face when I woke up each morning.

Harper walked me around the gallery, telling me about each photograph and what it meant to her. She shared the story of her subjects and why they chose the artwork they had. Some were covered in ink, and some had only a piece or two to represent a piece of their lives. And for the first time I started to understand the allure of
tattoos.

Some of it was pure expression, but in many instances, it was a way to capture a feeling or a moment or a pivotal point in one’s life that the person wanted to make permanent. Because moments were fleeting, but if every time you looked down and saw ‘Semper Fi’ written across your forearm,
and you remembered being in Afghanistan and fighting alongside your Marine brothers, or if you look down at your foot and saw the hibiscus tattooed there, and it reminded you of your honeymoon in Hawaii, then it made you never forget that moment in time. From the simplest to the most significant, tattoos were so personal. And Harper had captured that personal feeling so well.

“There are no pictures of you,” I said after she’d shown me around the gallery.

It had taken over an hour, because every few minutes the gallery owner would bring someone over to meet Harper, and they would gush over her work. I so badly wanted to take her hand and squeeze it and let her know how incredibly proud I was of her. She had made a fantastic life for herself, and I hoped, with some of the changes I’d recently made that I was on a path to do the same thing.

“I’m the photographer. I’m behind the lens.”

I smiled. “Yeah, and I guess a picture of you would probably steal the show anyway. It wouldn’t be fair to the other models.”

“Ryan,” she said, blushing scarlet as she looked down at the floor.

“Harper, you’re beautiful. That’s all I’m saying.”

God, I wanted so badly to take her hand in mine and tell her I loved her, but she already knew that. And I didn’t want to scare her away. She needed to make the decision to be with me when she was ready.

She looked back up at me, her eyes bright. “Thank you.”

“So what are the chances that I might be able to talk you
into that celebratory drink? As friends, of course.”

“I think they’re pretty good,” she said. Then she looked up and nodded at someone across the room. I looked back to see the gallery owner motioning her to come over. “I have to go mingle. Talia just gave me the look that said you’ve been monopolizing me, and I need to give some time to my other guests.”

I smiled. “That’s fine. I’ll just take another look and see if there’s anything I might want to buy.”

She blushed again. “Everything’s sold,” she told me, and she sounded giddy. “It’s the first time I’ve ever sold out a show before.”

“Congratulations,” I said, pulling her into a hug. Her strawberry scented shampoo assaulted my senses and made me never want to let her go. “I’m so proud of you.”

Thankfully she didn’t chastise me for touching her, and I took that as a good sign.

“Thank you,” she said graciously. Then she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “And thank you for coming. It means so much to me.”

She walked away from me, and I stood watching her go.
Her face lit up as she spotted a man in his forties who looked out of place in the shirt and tie he’d put on. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back just as hard. Then I watched them engage in a vigorous conversation in which they made many of the same hand gestures. I realized it was her father right about the time she turned and pointed me out to him. And a few seconds later, he was crossing the room to me.

“Ryan Carson,” he said in a strong voice. I nodded. “Bill Harper. It’s nice to meet you
, finally.”

He stuck out his hand
, and I shook it firmly. “It’s nice to meet you too, sir.”

When he let go of my hand, he shoved his
hands in his pocket. “Harper told me what happened,” he said gruffly. “And I’m real sorry you never got to meet Tyler. He was a special little boy.”

I nodded a few times. “That’s what Harper said.”

“He looked a lot like you,” he chuckled. “And now I know where he got that pensive look he always used to have.”

“Excuse me?” I was
n’t sure what he was talking about.

“You have this look on your face like you’re
in deep contemplation when you’re nervous, almost like you’re eying up the people around you and the room itself so you know how to defend yourself, if needed. Tyler used to do the same thing, and I thought it was so strange, but now I know where he got it from.”

I didn’t know what to say. My son and I shared mannerisms. The thought alone made my heart ache for him.

“I will always regret not getting to know him,” I told him honestly. “But I’m so glad he had you in his life. Harper told me about how much he loved cars, and that was because of you.”

Bill nodded. “He did. And he could even name them. He was smart for a little boy.”

“I think he got that from me too,” I joked.

“I think he got that from his mama,” he said, and we both turned to see Harper talking to a group of
enraptured people.

“I think you’re right.”

“Well, I’m going to get a beer and see what brilliance my daughter has come up with this time. She never lets me see her work before it’s done, so I never know what to expect. You take care, Ryan, and I expect you to come over for dinner one night.”