And then she painted to order, for the very first time. When she was finished, she held up the plate and saw herself. All
the things that make a portrait—eyes, lips, mouth, and hair—none of it was distinct. Instead, she relied on colors and their
location. The gold covered the full-circle edge of the plate, for her hair was long and overwhelming. The blue splashed randomly
across the surface, for no one knows where haints come from or where they go. She traced a silhouette, complete with the flowing
drape of long polyester in wispy lines of black. And then she added green. A perfect circle of green, right in the center
of the plate, right in the heart of the black silhouette.
When it was dry, she wrapped it together with the plate for Daniel’s mother. She wondered what Daniel would think when he
saw it. Would he know it was her? Would he care?
Hannah had the hotel driver deliver the plates to Daniel’s office at the arranged time. And then she waited. When Mother came
that evening to tell her Daniel was in the lobby, she felt victorious. She had painted to order. It had brought him back.
It’s enough
, Hannah warned herself. It was time to end the game, especially since she was winning. Especially before he hurt her.
“Tell him I’m too busy,” Hannah said to Mother. “He doesn’t have an appointment, and I have no pieces ready for him yet.”
“What are you doing?” Mother demanded.
“Finishing this order. And then I have two new sushi sets to make. Sushi, can you believe it?”
“Hurry and dress yourself. I’ll have Tabby press a new sweater while you wash up. Daniel is waiting.”
“Tell him to leave.”
Mother’s eyes narrowed, she held her hands out palms up. “But he is your chance, Hannah. Your only one. You are grown up now.
Others may not come. He is a decent man and he’s taken an interest in you—”
“But I’m not.”
“You’re not interested?”
“
Decent.
”
Hannah turned her back, so Mother couldn’t see her face. How it twisted into something painful and wounded. They hadn’t spoken
of it in so many years.
Mother walked to her, placed her hand gently on Hannah’s back. “He will never know, Hannah,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t
think of it, not even once. I worked hard for you, daughter, to make it as though it never happened.”
“But I do,” Hannah said, choking back her sobs. “Think of it. All the time. Don’t you?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t let my heart be blind to new blessings. Don’t refuse the second chance God has offered you. Now
go to him. Groom yourself and then go to him.”
Hannah sighed. “Send him here.” She brought her hands to her face and smeared a bit of mud across her chin. “He likes me best
this way. Send him here.”
That night Hannah taught Daniel how to wedge clay into a cow head. And Daniel taught her how to be alone with him, talk with
him, and feel almost comfortable. She was still afraid, of course. Of him, and the pain he could cause her. The lies he could
tell. She was afraid of his happiness, and that he knew how to find it on his own. She was afraid of the bridge she had built
inside her. And how shaky it seemed whenever he was around.
Slowly, carefully, something began to bloom on the mountain. Mother started sewing soft yellow sweaters. She hid the headcaps
that Hannah had grown fond of. Bethie made sure to fill all the vases around their home with flowers. She tied Hannah’s hair
back with one of her patchwork sashes. And Father, more exhausted and shaky with every day that passed, managed to leave his
study whenever Daniel came to visit. Hannah watched them sit together on the porch and talk of ordinary things. Like weather
and politics. She thought of Sam, and how Father liked everyone. How he would have liked Sam, too.
Hannah was careful. A true, deep water Yank. She stayed on the mountaintop. She made Daniel come to her. She ignored the invitation
that came in the mail to an office party at his firm. She ignored the messages he left at the front desk for her during the
morning, asking if she wanted to meet him in town for lunch.
But Daniel kept showing up in the Great Room. Mother came to him once, determined to protect Hannah. Determined to thoroughly
sound out his intentions. She pulled him into the library, and bluntly asked him why.
“I’m here to see Hannah, of course.”
“But why do you keep coming back? Your art collection is full, I’m sure.”
“No, there’s one piece left I must collect.” He looked her squarely in the eyes. He was one of the few, one of the only, that
could do it without having to look away.
“But you’re one of the most successful bachelors in town. You could have any other woman. A modern, beautiful woman. So I
have to wonder, why on earth do you want my Hannah?”
He shook his head as he turned to go. “How could you not know?” he asked. “She’s been yours all this time. How could you ever
wonder?”
Wonder.
It was the same word that came to him, whenever he thought of Hannah. After the other women in his life that had come and
gone, Hannah seemed like a new creature altogether. Like a beautiful secret waiting to be revealed. She made him believe that
he would never grow bored of her. That he could never fully understand her. He hadn’t so much as seen her naked ankle, and
yet when he looked at her before that potter’s wheel, whispering gentle words to her clay, she took his breath. This thought
of her, the mystery of her, interrupted his thoughts, his work, his peace. He only had to close his eyes to see her and be
filled with wonder.
He had touched her, only once. They were walking toward the front door to sit on the porch. She reached for the door-knob
and so did he. He let his hand fall over hers. She jumped, pulled her hand back as though he hurt her.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, as he pushed the door open.
He was old enough, perceptive enough, to see the challenge of loving her. And to enjoy it. He kept his distance, and whenever
doubt crept upon him he remembered the plate. She had painted to order for him. He was the first. He was the only.
“Come to dinner with me,” he said one evening. “In town. My mother could join us. She thinks you’re quite the celebrity.”
“No,” Hannah said. “I have too many orders to work on. Let’s just eat with the guests. Shari is making lasagna tonight.”
“But we always eat here. Besides, there’s a new gallery opening about twenty minutes away. A painter. I thought you’d enjoy—”
Hannah shook her head. “Please don’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to leave this mountaintop. I don’t want dinner out. I don’t want to see a new gallery. And I don’t want to meet
your mother.”
“What are we, Hannah?” he asked calmly. “I keep coming here. I can’t make myself stay away, but I don’t know if you want me
to come or not. I have no idea what we are supposed to be.”
“That’s what you like best,” Hannah said lowly. “Remember?
Nobody can solve it.
That’s what you told my father you liked.”
“About your
art
.”
Hannah sighed. “There’s no difference between me and my art.”
“That’s fine. I think I’ve made it clear that I
love
your art.”
Hannah turned to walk away, the bridge within her swaying wildly. “You need to leave now,” she said coolly. She
went to her workroom, but the clay wouldn’t do what she told it to. She threw it to the floor and went to her bedroom.
Mother came to her. “What’s wrong?”
“He wants to take me off the mountain.”
“Of course he does.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not safe. Besides, I can’t meet his mother. She’ll see right through me.”
“Nonsense. You’re surrounded by guests and workers, and none of them have guessed.”
“But her son likes me, so she’ll study me closely.”
“Is that all? Just likes?”
Hannah shook her head. “He thinks he loves me. But he doesn’t know me.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Like a liar. Sometimes I want to tell him. Just so he’ll be warned and know to escape.”
“There’s no reason to tell him. But even if you did, what happened was so long ago. You were young, and you made the same
mistake that many young people do. The only difference is you got caught. I doubt your past would matter to Daniel nearly
as much as you think.”
“Then I would hate him.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it matters, Mother.
It matters
.”
“Why can’t you just allow yourself to be happy? This man is my promise to you come true. Maybe we can all finally have peace
together.”
“Oh no, not together,” Hannah whispered bitterly, as her voice broke. “Somewhere there’s a baby.”
“Shhhh, not a baby. Somewhere there’s a girl that is happy. Somewhere there’s a girl that is loved. She’s growing up and moving
forward. She’s having a
wonderful
life. Why can’t you do the same? Go to him at his office tomorrow. Tell Daniel you were wrong. Tell him you want to meet
his mother. Show him that you are willing to be loved.”
“Once,” Hannah whispered. “Back when I used to think that Sam and I would be together forever, I wrote him a letter and told
him I wanted him to meet Father. He wrote me back, ‘Relax, Yank.’ ”
Mother laughed dryly. “Daniel is no Sam.”
“You wouldn’t know.”
“Oh, but daughter, I do.”
Hannah sat up in bed. Mother nodded slowly. “Yes, I met him once. He was so defensive. ‘I’m just a kid,’ he kept saying. Like
that excused him from everything. He never once looked me in the eye.”
“But why did you go to him? Because Father suggested we marry?”
“Because we needed to find you. When you didn’t return after a week like you were supposed to, Father went to your school
demanding answers. He explained to them how you were attending the senior college tour. He wanted to know what the delay was,
and when you would return. When they told him there was no such trip, he refused to believe it. Nobody could convince him
that you had lied. When a secretary suggested he contact the police and file a runaway report, he jumped across the desk at
her screaming, ‘My daughter is not a runaway!’ The only way they could get him to leave was to call the police on him.”
“I wasn’t a runaway,” Hannah said lowly. “I meant to return, until I found out…”
Mother shrugged her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter what you
meant
, Hannah; we imagined the worst. We knew, just knew, that someone had lured you with a fake trip. We called the police and
told them about the college trip that you had believed you were going on. The trip that someone had set up and tricked you
into so that they could lure you away from any protection. To do Lord knows what to you. They believed us at first. They searched
records at the bus station. They ran your picture in the paper under the headline
Have You Seen This Girl?
They interviewed dozens of kids at your school. They focused on a certain group. I never knew of them until those police
interviews. Kids that chased you and Bethie to the buses every day. Called you Polyester Pollys?”
Hannah nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You should’ve known,” Hannah said.
“We knew there was teasing. But that you and Bethie had to hide in the janitor’s closet to escape them? That they threw cups
of Kool-Aid at you? When I read those reports, I started to wonder. Maybe you really were a runaway. And then the police brought
me copies of the bus schedules. Told me to review them to see if there were any locations that we had family or friends that
you might go to. There was only one thing that caught my eye. A tour of the Atlantic coast. Beginning in South Carolina and
working its way back up through North Carolina and Virginia. It left the same day you had. It all made sense then. You were
happier on James Island than I ever remembered. With your job and that green bike.”
“So how did you find him?”
“We went straight to that little place you used to work. The steampot place. I found your old boss and asked her if she had
seen you. She told me how you had stayed with her when there was too much company at our home on the marsh. She said she thought
I knew, thought I had sent you. That’s when it all started to unravel. She was hesitant to talk to me. I could tell she didn’t
like me one bit. Didn’t respect me, or our ways.”
“She just sees things differently.”
“I begged her as a mother to help me find you. I told her I knew you were in danger.
I knew it.
And begged for any way that she could help me find you. She wrote something down on a piece of paper, and then looked me
in the eye. ‘Your daughter is a good girl,’ she said. ‘But she’s a baby yet, and when you find her, for once in your life,
you treat that child like the baby she is. You hold her. You comfort her. She done got her heart broke for the first time.
For once in your life, be the momma she needs.’ ”
Mother covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head. “I went crazy that day. I could’ve been arrested, too. I took
the paper from her hand and then I slapped her as hard as I could. Father had to drag me away, and she followed, yelling,
‘Lady, I forgive you already. ’Cause there’s a hurt comin’ your way that’s a world darker than any hurt you just gave me.’
”
“A prophet,” Hannah said.
“Perhaps. But she loved you. That’s why she agreed to help you later. She hated me, blamed me, but she loved you.”
“What did her paper say?”
“
Go see Sam
,” Mother whispered. “A part of me knew exactly what trouble you were in. Such awful words for a mother to read.
Go see Sam
.” Mother shook her head and laughed softly. “Of course your father was still expecting the best. Cora gave him Sam’s mailing
address, and the whole drive to Columbia he spoke of how maybe you had gotten another job. Maybe Sam was your new employer.
Maybe you were just out in search of new adventures, tired of your academic routine. But then we found Sam. So young and already
with that unmistakable mark of rebellion in his eyes. It was clear to us both then, Sam was something altogether different
than a green bike or a new job. Altogether more dangerous.”