“She trusts you.” There was perfect certainty in Suz’s words. “She wouldn’t be here with you, with all of us, if she didn’t.”
“I hope so.” But Drake wanted so much more than Rosa’s trust. He wanted her heart. Wanted to know that he was as deep in her soul as she already was in his. “She’s got some big battles to fight. I’m hoping she’ll let me fight them with her, but I know there are some that are going to have to be all hers.” He went to the sink and rinsed out his mug. “Anything else she wants you to know, she’ll tell you herself.”
His siblings were silent for a few moments, each of them digesting what he’d said. Finally, Alec spoke. “When people see the paintings you’ve done of her, the art world is going to lose it. You know that, right?”
“Those paintings are private. All of them.”
Suzanne made a frustrated sound. “I know both of you have your reasons to keep your paintings of Rosa out of the public eye, but I swear I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them.” To Harry and Alec, she explained, “I saw them when I dropped in on Drake in Montauk to see if he wanted to ride here with me. They’re brilliant. Beyond, actually. And since I know you guys are thinking it, I’ll tell you they’re nothing at all like Dad’s paintings of Mom. They feel totally different—light and bright and joyous, instead of obsessive and codependent.”
“Speaking of obsessed and codependent,” Alec said, “what has Dad told you about why he suddenly wants to pass on his paintings to us?”
None of them heard the sound of boots on the wide-planked wood floor until it was too late...and their father was standing in the doorway, clearly having heard more than any of them wished he had.
“Dad.” Suz jumped up. “We didn’t hear you coming in.”
Drake had spent thirty years wary of being rejected by his father. But if he didn’t want Rosa to keep hiding out, he needed to stop hiding too. He’d told her she had it in her to start fresh, insisted that the status quo wasn’t necessarily the easier, safer way. Looked like it was time to stand by his words.
Which was why, despite the equally wary look on William Sullivan’s face, Drake walked over and gave him a hug. “It’s good to see you, Dad.”
His father’s surprise was palpable. So was that of Alec, Harry, and Suz, for that matter, as they gaped at father and son from across the room. The thing was, Drake had done enough thinking about Rosa’s messy situation with her mother that turning the mirror on himself had been unavoidable. He couldn’t expect Rosa to try to work things out with her mother if he wasn’t willing to do the same.
“I didn’t expect you all to come at the same time.”
Drake could easily hear the subtext—his father hadn’t really expected any of them to come except for Suz and maybe Harry. The five of them hadn’t been together in the Adirondacks for years. Probably because it always felt like there was a ghost hanging over them all, the paintings of their mother that were stored in the cottage a short distance behind the house a heavy weight none of them really knew how to carry.
“You want to tell us what’s going on?” Alec stood with his arms folded, looking like he wished he was anywhere but here. And clearly, putting his foot in it twice in the past half hour, first with Rosa and then with their father, hadn’t put him in an apologetic mood. If anything, it had made him more blunt.
Out of the corner of his eye, Drake could see that his sister was about to dive into the fray to try to save their father from this uncomfortable situation. But even though Alec was lacking a hell of a lot of finesse today, he was asking the question they all wanted—and needed—an answer to.
Drake caught his sister’s eye and shook his head. You can’t save him this time, Suz.
He could see how hard it was for her to wait out their father’s uncomfortable silence. I know I can’t, her eyes seemed to say, but why does it have to be this hard?
Drake had given up wishing things could be different with his dad a long time ago. But now, he wondered if he’d given up too soon without ever actually learning the whole story of what had happened between his mother and father.
“A reporter called,” his father finally replied. “When I didn’t call her back, she came here and waited until I came home from a job site. She told me she was writing a story about the thirtieth anniversary of my last painting.” His father headed for the coffee now and poured himself a cup, but set it down before drinking it. “I need something stronger than this.” He reached into an upper cupboard for a bottle of whiskey. “Anyone else?”
“I’ll take one.” Alec uncrossed his arms and finally moved toward their dad. Suz shook her head, as did Harry. Drake figured it might help loosen things up a little, so together the three of them knocked the shots back, then set the glasses on the counter.
“Thirty years.” William looked at Drake first, then Suz, then Harry, then Alec. Youngest to oldest. “How the hell did thirty years pass?”