“How could I?” Sophie cocked her head. “Up until this point, you’ve more or less denied the fact that you even draw.”
I looked down at the table. “I don’t know. It’s just…God, I don’t even know if it is drawing. It’s probably still just doodling. Just goofing around.”
“Can I see the picture you did in your sketch pad?”
I could feel my face flush. “Right now?”
“Yeah. Right now.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Sophie came around from her side of the table and put her hand on top of mine. “Listen to me,” she said. “For a long time, I thought that I should try to be somebody worthwhile, like a doctor or a nurse or a teacher. You know, to make my mark on the world. And then after I did that, I could screw around with flour and butter and eggs. Maybe on weekends, when I had extra time. Like baking wasn’t a good enough profession. And so I held back from really doing it, from going all the way with it. I told myself I wasn’t good enough, that I could never make bread because I was too impatient to let dough rise, and I should never try cheesecake because I burned everything made with dairy. But that wasn’t really true, Julia.”
She took a deep breath.
“You know, people make mistakes doing what they love. That’s human nature. What I bake won’t be great every single time. What you draw will probably never be perfect. But the biggest mistake people make isn’t how well they draw this line or crimp that crust. The biggest mistake people make is never finding or doing what they love at all.”
A few silent seconds passed. Outside, I could hear the dull footsteps of someone walking along the sidewalk, the muted roll of tires against the street.
“You found it,” I said finally. “What you love.”
“I did.” Sophie nodded. “And now it’s your turn.”
chapter
39
Over the next few days, I spent most of the morning in front of the wide kitchen wall, laying out a rough copy of the drawing I had done in my notebook. Sophie and I had gone out and bought me real sketching pencils with soft lead. The difference was astounding, both in texture and smoothness. Plus, the new pencils erased much more easily. Which was a good thing. A really good thing, since I erased more than I drew.
My anxiety mounted every time I took a step back and looked at the wall. What was I thinking? Did that look like a tree or a dying plant? But the quiet thrill that jolted through me each time I stepped back up to it with a new eye, a clearer idea, was unlike anything else I’d felt before.
I kept going.
Drawing.
Erasing.
Drawing some more.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I bit my lip, waiting for Aiden to answer. Sophie had gone somewhere with Lloyd to pick out more tile for the roof, which meant I had a free afternoon. Aiden had fashioned a rough sort of seat for me out of an upside-down milk crate and a throw pillow so I could sit and watch him work. Just now, he had successfully centered a piece of clay and was beginning the process of forming it.
He nodded, not taking his eyes off his hands. “Go ahead.”
“If it’s too personal—I mean, if it upsets you or anything, just…”
“Don’t worry about it.” He cut me off, squinting at the flat clay rim. “Just ask.”
“Are your mom and dad…I mean, are they divorced? You said you lived here with your dad, but you’ve never mentioned your mom.”
“My mother died a few years ago.” Aiden volunteered this bit of information with such aplomb that I almost gasped.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Thanks,” Aiden said. “Dad and I have pretty much come to grips with it now, but it was awful for a while. It was sudden—a car accident right outside of Manchester. Middle of the night. Real dark. Rainy. Route 30 is super narrow. No lights. They said she was killed on impact. I doubt the truck even saw her coming.”
“God,” I whispered.
Aiden rested his hands on his lap and looked at me. “You ever know someone who died?”
I hesitated for a split second, and then shook my head. “No.”
“It’s so weird,” he said. “For the longest time—months!—I thought I was stuck in some kind of bad dream. Like I was asleep and I couldn’t wake up. Have you ever had that kind of sensation?”
I nodded. Some days, like the one on Main Street, when Sophie had been so close to telling me, had felt like that. It was hard to shake. Harder still to forget.
“The call came in the middle of the night,” Aiden went on, “and I remember Dad waking me up so we could go to the hospital, but none of it felt real. Even when the sun came up the next day and then the day after that, it still didn’t feel real. It just felt like…I don’t know. Impossible. It didn’t…fit, like someone was trying to ram a puzzle piece into our life that didn’t fit. And even though it was too big, too wide, too friggin’ ridiculous, it still kept trying to push its way in.”
He shook his head.