Page 23 of For You I'd Mend
“But you left. And you weren’t reading my texts.” Could I sound more desperate?
He pulled his hand from my elbow and rubbed the scruff on his face. “I didn’t want to talk to Aiden or Cal, so I turned off my phone.”
“Oh,” I said, lacing my fingers together to keep from wrapping my arms around my waist. I needed a damn hug, and Theo obviously wasn’t offering. “Well, I’m sorry anyway.”
“I’m sorry I made you worry,” he said, reaching for me. He pulled his hand back and motioned to the canvas. “Want to see what I’m working on?”
“Sure.”
He dragged a stool from the counter where we’d eaten several meals together and pulled it around to the canvas. He grabbed the palette and settled onto the stool he’d presumably been sitting on. Unlike me, Theo didn’t mind talking while he painted. He probably conversed with everyone he inked, so I guess it made sense. He placed the palette on his lap, grabbed two brushes from a jar on the windowsill, and started using both.
I hopped onto the stool beside him and took in his work in progress: A woman with beautiful curly black hair, her profile graceful as she stared off the canvas. Theo worked on the background on either side of her, painting first with one hand and then the other.
“I’ve never seen you work like that before,” I said in awe. Any awkwardness I felt dissolved as I watched his alternating brushstrokes.
“I don’t usually,” he said, using his left hand to add a swirl of rich indigo behind the woman’s head.
It took me a moment, but when I saw what he was doing, I gasped. “You’re mirroring each stroke in different colors.”
He nodded. “Most, but not all.”
“If you wanted to show how your hands are equally abled, why not make it identical?”
I’d never ask another artist a question like that mid-work, but I knew Theo had already given the process a lot of thought. He’d probably painted the entire thing in his mind before he picked up a brush, or in this case, brushes. What I wanted to ask, but didn’t, was who was the woman? It sure as hell wasn’t me. Her eyes were a rich brown, gentle and soft. The expression in them reminded me of something.
“It’s to show that no two things are the same. Even if they appear to be. Even things you’d think would be. Like coffee.”
A laugh escaped before I could stop it. Theo paused mid brushstroke and flashed me a tentative smile. I squirmed on the stool and almost tipped over when I shifted my weight too much.
Theo reached for me but stopped when he remembered the oily brushes in his hands. “You OK?”
“Yep. So, coffee?” I couldn’t be more awkward if I tried.
He turned back to the canvas and started painting again. “Greek coffee is different from American. Thicker, stronger.”
He was talking about a beverage, but my body temperature shot up a few degrees. I nodded, a ridiculous response since he wasn’t looking at me.
“So many things you’d think would be similar, like refrigerators, aren’t. Not only what’s inside them, but the shape, the size.”
“So, the woman is living in two worlds, basically.”
“Mana,” he said, pausing his brushstrokes to stare at the woman on the canvas.
“What’s that?”
“It’s what I call my mother.” He set the brushes on the palette, and I instinctively reached for his hand. He didn’t take it right away, and my cheeks flamed with embarrassment before he locked his fingers with mine and started speaking again.
“I think she adapted to life here better than my father because she wasn’t willing to let one culture replace the other. Patera only spoke Greek at home because he wanted everyone to know he was fluent in English. Mana always spoke Greek with me, no matter where we were. She could make a Thanksgiving meal as easily as roasted lamb for Tsikopempti, Smoke Thursday.” He turned from the canvas and grinned at me. “It’s like Fat Tuesday but with meat instead of pancakes.”
“Sounds delicious,” I breathed. A day pigging out on smoked meat did sound tasty, but it was his rare, full grin that had taken my breath away.
He gave my hand a squeeze and dropped it like he’d had enough and couldn’t stomach touching me another moment. “Anyway,” he said picking up the brushes again. “I figured painting it with both hands came the closest to what it felt like to be in both cultures simultaneously. I guess it could have been a self-portrait, but I wanted to see her face again.”
Well, go ahead and stab me in the feels. Theo had never talked about his family before, but everyone in Peace Falls knew they’d abandoned him after the trial. Rowan would have known how to sweetly talk with him about his mother and how he felt. I just sat and watched him paint, knowing whatever came out of my mouth would likely be the wrong thing.
“Thank you,” he said quietly after a while, his eyes glued to the canvas.
“For what?”
