Chapter 17: Lydia's Paintbrush

Lydia showed up at the store on Saturday morning with a gallon of yellow paint and a pair of old jeans.

"I'm here to help," she said on the doorstep. "I'm not here to fight."

I let her in.

My father's sign lay across two sawhorses in the middle of the floor.

It was a long plank of pine, and the yellow letters on it had faded to the color of weak tea.

BELL & DAUGHTERS HARDWARE, it said, in a hand that had loved every letter.

"I meant to repaint it myself," I said. "I keep not starting."

"Then I'll start, and you'll correct me."

She knelt, pried the lid off the can with a paint key, and stirred.

I got down beside her with the second brush.

For ten minutes we worked in a silence that was not hostile.

I traced the B.

She did the first A in a swoop that was wrong, and I said so, and she laughed.

"He's a lucky man," she said, with her eyes on the wood.

"Who?"

"Your father. To have a sign somebody loves this much."

I kept painting.

"About the elevator," I said.

"You don't have to."

"It wasn't what it looked like."

"It looked like two people who've been wanting to for a year." She dipped the brush. "I'm not hurt, Mara. I'm relieved. That's much worse to admit."

I put my brush across the can.

"Why relieved?"

She looked at the sign for a while.

"Because I came back to see if he was waiting," she said. "And he was, but not for me."

"I have something to tell him. I was afraid it would be easier if he were still mine."

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