Broken Pieces: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward me. “Since the accident.”
    The frustration I’d felt a split-second earlier softened, but I caught myself, bolstering my resolve. He didn’t deserve my sympathy.
    Yes, I felt bad for the man if, in fact, what he said was true, but where had he been all my life? Did he honestly expect he could come back now and gain my sympathy?
    “So this is a habit of yours?” I asked. “Hiding from things that are difficult?”
    He sank back into the chair, folding his hands in his lap. Something purple speckled his slender fingers and covered a few nails.
    “What’s on your hands?”
    He lifted his pale eyes to mine, even as the shadow fell. He was done with the conversation. Done with the truth.
    “I painted the chairs on your patio.”
    I blinked. “You show up unannounced, after years of merely stopping by for Christmas dinner, and you paint my patio chairs?”
    Albert tucked his hands into the pockets of his chinos and looked down at the floor.
    “I wanted to do something to thank you for letting me stay.”
    In that moment he looked like a young boy, unsure of himself, frightened. He looked nothing like the imposing image I’d held inside my memory for most of my life.
    He appeared broken, and the ten-year-old inside me wanted nothing more than to run for a towel to tie around his neck to remind him of his superhero status, even though he hadn’t been my superhero in a very long time.
    For all I knew, he was still acting.
    I pushed away the past and focused on the now.
    “You painted my chairs?” I repeated.
    He looked up and our stares locked. “Want to see them?”
    I threw up my hands. “Sure,” I said, wondering if the chairs were nothing more than a diversion to shift our conversation away from his career troubles.
    “Her favorite color,” Albert said proudly after leading me to the patio, pointing to the chairs he’d painted—chairs that had been a faded green that morning and were now the same brilliant violet they’d been in my youth.
    He grinned as if my mother might step outside at any moment to happily discover what he’d done. He’d once taken so much pride in our house. They both had, my parents. Ours had been a home filled with love and laughter, a warm, nurturing place where I’d always felt safe.
    “She’s been gone a long time,” I said, wondering if he’d returned the chairs to their original color to somehow bring a piece of her back.
    “Seems like yesterday.” Sadness flickered across his tired features.
    “I guess that happens when you run away.”
    Silence stretched between us. Silence and twenty years of nothing but stiff holiday meals.
    “It’s my favorite color, too,” I said, wishing I could take back the words as soon as they left my lips.
    Albert pressed his hand to my shoulder, the rush of memories his touch brought almost more than I could bear. “I had no idea,” he said.
    I winced against the sting of his words.
    Of course he had no idea. He knew nothing about me, making my earlier moment of sentimentality feel ludicrous.
    I walked back inside, away from the fresh paint and the emotional danger it represented. I stopped in the kitchen, leaning hard against the counter, working to regain my composure.
    I could do this.
    I could run lines with Albert and drive him to New York in the morning. Chances were good I wouldn’t hear from the selection committee for a day or two, and the projects waiting for me at the shop weren’t anything that couldn’t sit untouched for another day.
    I thought about the violet chairs and my mother, knowing exactly what she’d ask me to do if she were here.
    She’d been kind, gentle. Slow to anger and quick to forgive. Pretty much the polar opposite of the woman I’d become.
    When my father stepped back inside, I channeled her spirit and did the exact opposite of what I wanted to do.
    Straightening, I gave him my full attention and said, “Let’s do this.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    That evening, over an awkward dinner of pizza and