Chapter 27

HE WAS CRYING HARD now, rocking so violently on that stool I thought he might fly off. He was mumbling something. But the words were impossible to understand. I hated to see him like this, hated myself for causing him pain. I inhaled and exhaled until I felt some calm enter back into my bloodstream.

I shoved the photo back in my pocket, went to Franny, once more wrapped my arms around his bulk. I held him so tightly I thought I might break my arms. He stopped rocking, but he was shivering. I dried his eyes with my hands, brushed back his thick hair, whispered, ‘shush’ the same way a mother might calm a little boy.

I told him I was sorry; that everything was going to be okay.

“Okay,” he whispered in a quaking voice. “Franny’s okay.”

When finally he calmed down, I stepped outside the room, called Caroline to come pick him up; that Franny needed to go home. She was about to hang up when I stopped her.

“The painting Franny brought for me today. Did you see it?”

Dead air oozed over the line.

“Francis didn’t show me the piece. Sometimes he makes a point of showing the paintings to me. Other times he can be very secretive. He’s a grown man and I must respect his decisions, within reason of course.”

It struck me as strange: Caroline referring to Franny as a “man.” Not the boy she spoke of earlier.

We hung up.

When I went back into the studio, Franny was bundled in his old navy blue pea coat, sticker-covered portfolio bag slung over the shoulder. He faced the door at the opposite end of the room the same way a scolded child would stand in a corner. He was awaiting his mother, even though it would be some fifteen minutes before her arrival.

The new painting was laid out on my table. Like rubbernecking at a bad car wreck, it hurt to look at it. Still, I had to pose the one crucial question about its title. But before I could open my mouth, he blurted out the answer to the unanswered question.

“Taste,” he said not to me, but to the door only inches from his face.