Chapter 5: The Studio

It had been four months since the divorce.

I stood in the art school studio on a Saturday and looked at a blank canvas.

Tubes of paint lay scattered at my feet, and I was five months pregnant under an oversized sweater.

Nobody else was in the building, which suited me.

Whenever my hands were idle, my mind went back to the bedroom.

The split had been quiet at first, and then someone talked.

Within a week every gossip site had a version of it.

All of them blamed me.

They said the wife had cheated, and the poor husband had been brave enough to end it.

It hurt, but there was a use in it.

While the papers had a villain, they left me alone.

The heavy door creaked open.

A man walked in with his eyes on his phone.

He got halfway across the room before he saw me, and he stopped.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't think anyone came in on Saturdays."

He looked at the paint on my cuffs.

"Do you always work weekends?"

I was not in the mood.

I dipped my brush and turned back to the canvas.

"Maybe you should ask what you're doing here," I said.

He smiled, and he took the hint.

He gathered a few tubes and set up his easel by the far window.

We worked in silence for two hours.

It was a good silence, and I hated that I noticed.

At last he crossed the room and set a cold bottle of water on the corner of my table.

"You've been at it a long time," he said. "You should drink something. Especially in your condition."

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