Blurb
Excerpt: The Little Bookshop on the Seine
With the beeps, drips, and drones, it was hard to hear Mom, as she waxed lyrical about my painting. Her voice was weaker today, and her breathing labored, but none of that took away from the incandescence in her deep blue eyes.
Wistfully she said, “Lucy, you have a real gift, do you know that?” She patted the white knitted hospital blanket. “Look at that sunset, it’s like I’m right there, stepping into the world you’ve created.”
I sat gently on the edge of the bed, doing my best to avoid the wires that connected my mom to the machine. These days her hair hung lank—the wild riot of her strawberry-blonde curls tamed by so many days indoors, head resting on a pillow. I tucked an escaped tendril back, and made a mental note to help her wash it later.
“You’re biased. You have to say that,” I said, keeping my voice light. Beside her, I cast a critical eye over the piece. All I could find was fault. The sun was too big, the sky not quite the right hue, and the birds with their wings spread wide seemed comical, like something a kindergartner would do. When it came to my art, I still had a way to go before I felt confident. Mom was the only person I showed my work to these days.
“Hush,” she said. “I could stare at this all day. If I close my eyes I feel the heat from the sun, the wind in my hair…”
That’s why I’d painted the picture. She’d been suffering quietly for so many years, in and out of hospitals, unable these days to pack her oversized backpack and follow her heart around the globe. She’d been a wanderer, always looking to the next city, a new host of people, a brand new adventure…but her diagnosis had changed all of that. Even though she never complained, I could read it in her eyes—she still yearned for that freedom.
My mom, a free spirit, looked out of place in the gray-white room. She needed sunshine, laughter, the frisson of excitement as she met other like-minded souls, nomads with big hearts and simple lifestyles. The painting, I hoped, would remind her of what we’d do when she was home again. A short road trip to the beach, where I’d sketch, and she’d gaze at the ocean, watching waves roll in.
“Honey, are you working a double tonight?” she said softly, her gaze still resting on the golden rays of sun.
I had to work as many shifts as I could. Our rent was due, and the bills mounting up, just like always. There were times I had to call in sick, to help Mom. We lived paycheck to paycheck, and I was on thin ice with my boss as it was. He didn’t understand what my private life was like, and I wasn’t about to tell him! It was no one’s business but my own. I kept our struggles hidden, a tightly guarded secret, because I didn’t want pity. That kind of thing made me want to lash out so I avoided it. When I had the odd day off, I tried to make up for it by covering any shift I could. We needed the money anyhow. “No,” I lied. “Not a double. I’ll be back early tomorrow and I’ll take you out to the rose garden.”
She gazed at me, searching my face. “No, Lucy. One of the nurses can take me outside. You stay home and rest.”
I scoffed. “You know the nurses won’t take you all that way. You’ll go crazy cooped up in here.”
