He smiled,
"Very diplomatic. I guess you will be a good psychiatrist someday after all," he added, and marched past his empty canvas, stopping a few yards away. "Well? Are we going back for lunch or not?"
"What about your things?'" I was staring at the canvas.
It's all right. No one will bother with that." he said. "Well, are we going?"
"Oh, yes, yes," I said, and quickly caught up with him.
We walked along quietly for a while. and when my arm grazed his, he jumped. He stopped and stared at me.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I was going to do birds today," he muttered, continuing to walk along, "but they weren't being very cooperative. They know when I want to paint them and they are capable of teasing me. Tormenting me. I should say. Just like the sea and the sky and the clouds and the stars and you!" he finished, speeding up to stay ahead of me all the way to the house, his hair flying around his head, his arms swinging as if he were pulling a rope and climbing upward and away with all his strength.
.
Linden was quiet during lunch, looking like he was daydreaming as he chewed and swallowed. The way he gazed through us and not at us made Mother nervous. She talked, leaping into every quiet moment as if afraid Linden would do or say something terrible if she didn't. She spoke mostly about the main house and what it would be like to move back into it.
"Just about all of the furniture in there belongs with the house, you know. Even most of the art on the walls. It's a big house to take care of. Willow. We'll have to decide what we want to use and what we want to shut away, knowing how little help we can afford."
"That's fine with me. Mother."
"It's still going to be a very expensive house to keep up. The utilities and all. I mean." she said.
"We can manage." I assured her. "Besides, Linden is going to work and sell lots of his paintings." I smiled at him.
"Yes," my mother agreed, "he can do that if he puts his mind to ft."
Linden lifted his gaze from the table and looked from her to me and back to her, his face full of surprise.
"I don't know if I'll sell any more of my work. Mother," he said.
"Of course you will. Linden. As long as you try. You'll try, won't you?" she asked him.
He nodded,
"Yes. I will, Mother," he said.
"Good." She sighed. "Maybe this is a new beginning. then."
Linden looked surprised again, and then he looked at me as if he finally had realized I had come back and we were all together. He nodded,
"Maybe," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe."
I smiled, but he didn't. His smiles had become as rare as diamonds and, for us, more valuable and important.
Afterward. I went to the beauty salon by myself. I was still disappointed that my mother hadn't come along. I had so looked forward to a real day together as mother and daughter. but I realized now that I had to move even more slowly. There were many miles to make up, a great stretch of emotional pain to ease and stop. It wasn't going to happen overnight. It might never happen completely, but as Daddy used to say, "An inch at a time is still moving forward.'
The beauty parlor was very busy. The receptionist was not at all diplomatic about her disappointment in my canceling Mother's
appointment.
"Do you know how valua
ble that time slot is?" she chastised. She didn't look much older than I was, if she was older at all, but she had a very snooty attitude from the start.
She wore black leather pants and a white translucent blouse that did nothing to hide her small but firm bosom, and she had bleached hair. I thought she wore too much makeup and was especially heavyhanded with her lipstick. Her swollen lips looked like they were made of wax,