Page 46 of From the Ashes

Farah doesn’t look flustered like I feel. She’s studying me with narrowed eyes, her hands resting on the top of her purse that she has slung around her body. Other than a few more lines and grayer hair, she looks just the way I remember her. I’m glad she was there for Zahir when I couldn’t be.

When I chose not to be.

“So you’re back in Zahir’s life,” she says eventually, cutting to the chase.

“Um, yes, ma’am,” I say. I’m not sure what to do with my hands, so I shove them in my pockets. “I know what happened before…after we left school…honestly, it was unforgivable.” I exhale and decide that if we’re not dancing around the issue, I’m just going to go all in. “Zahir and I have talked a lot and I’ve apologized many times. I didn’t think he should be allowed to forgive me, but you know what he’s like.”

Her face softens a little as a smile tweaks at the corner of her mouth. “I do know what he’s like. As stubborn as he is kind.”

It’s my turn to laugh as I nod. “That’s very true. Mrs. Delacroix…I take full responsibility for the great harm I causedyour grandson in the past. I was extremely unfair to him. It’s not an excuse, but I was just a kid myself and I didn’t know how to handle the situation better. But I do now.”

“Oh?” she says, raising her eyebrows.

I glance around, but nobody else seems to be in the area. It feels strange to be standing in an alley of fluorescent green garage doors, sparse concrete underfoot as the evening sun beams down overhead. I wish we were in her back yard—she always had such colorful flowers—drinking sweet mint tea like the old days. But this is where we ran into each other, so this is where it’s going down, I guess.

“I know actions speak louder than words,” I continue explaining, “so I intend to keep proving this to Zahir and to you as well if necessary. But he’s everything to me. I…I love him. I want to build a life with him. He makes me a better person by bringing out the real me. I’ve spent most of my life pretending to be something I’m not, but I think that’s over now. Because of him. He’s amazing and I want to treat him the way he deserves, for as long as he’ll let me.”

We just stare at each other for a moment, then this formidable but tiny woman sighs and rests her hand on my arm. “Ahh, Colt,” she says, shaking her head. “You were both just babies, weren’t you? I won’t lie. I cursed your name…alot.”There’s a flash in her eyes that lets me know how true that must have been. “Only because I hated seeing my darling boy so sad. But now?” She sighs again, and this time she gives me a wry smile and wags a finger at me. “Now, he’s happy all the time. He’s light and dreamy, like when he was a small boy. Did you know he started painting again?”

My heart wants to burst I’m so full of love and pride for my man. “That’s actually why I’m here, Mrs. Delacroix. He made me a triptych for my new apartment. The thing is…well, I’m not very good at decorating. I’ve been afraid to express myself and thenZahir admitted he wasn’t painting anymore. I told him if I could display anything it would be some of his art. So he created the three pictures for me to hang up and…it’s like we’re both coming back to who we were, you know? But with the benefit of maturity and wisdom we didn’t have before.”

She rests her hand on her chest and blinks at me a few times. “That’s wonderful to hear, truly.”

I nod and chuckle, feeling slightly lightheaded from the relief of finally talking to someone about this. “I have a bunch of stuff here that I haven’t put in the apartment yet. Seeing Zahir’s new paintings up, it made me feel inspired to settle in properly. But then I ran into you, and it feels a bit like fate is intervening.”

She hums and pats my arm again. “You might say that. Are you in a rush?”

“Not particularly, ma’am.”

“Excellent, follow me.”

She takes me farther into the storage site, apparently confident in knowing the way we’re headed. She waves around her key like a conductor’s baton before we finally stop in front of one of the units.

“Let me help you with that,” I say, but she waves me off.

“I’ve got it, don’t you worry.” She grins as the lock pops open, then she shoves up the roller door with a flourish.

It’s clear she’s got some of her own furniture here. I remember Zahir saying she’d downsized a few years ago. But I can tell right away that most of the space is being used for one thing only.

Zahir’s art.

I gasp as I step inside, marveling at all the canvases from large to small. “He thought you’d given these away,” I say, turning around absently to try and look at them all, but many of them are stacked together against the walls, so it’s going to take a while. My heart leaps as I spot a couple I recognize.

Farah blows a raspberry. “He never asked, I noticed. But no, of course not. As if I could get rid of his best work? It’s all here, safe and sound, waiting for the day I knew he would want it again.”

There’s a lump in my throat and my eyes are a little damp as I move from painting to painting, overwhelmed with joy. Seeing these creations preserved suddenly makes me feel like the last shadows of guilt are finally leaving my heart. I hated that he stopped painting, but I just accepted that the hours he’d poured into these pieces had been wasted and they were gone forever, taking parts of his soul with him. I feel like I’m looking at his hopes and dreams, his innocence and aspirations, pure moments from the time we spent together, before I had to go and spoil it all.

“This is amazing,” I say, reaching out to carefully touch the edge of a particularly large one that I remember he got an A for in our senior year. His teacher had even talked about organizing a little exhibition for him with this as the centerpiece, but he hadn’t been interested. He’d insisted that he painted for himself and for me and that was it. He didn’t want strangers judging his work or trying to interpret the bold patterns and swirling shapes.

I tilt my head and gently lean the canvases in front of it away so I can see the rest of the work better. Like all his best stuff, it’s pretty abstract and surreal. But I swear now with fresh eyes it looks to me like the two of us in the throws of passion on our beloved stretch of shoreline.

Perhaps that’s just me projecting my subconscious thoughts and it’s actually just a boat or a seagull or something. I guess that’s the beauty of art—it’s in the eye of the beholder. If I want to see a sweet and tender scene of us making love, then quite frankly, that’s what it is. To me, anyway.

“Thank you for showing me this,” I say thickly, turning to look at Farah. She’s watching me with her hands clasped in front of her chest.

“No, thank you, Colt,” she says, stepping closer. “You said your actions would speak louder than words, and I can see it’s as clear as day how much you treasure my habibi. I’m glad you came back to us.”

I swallow around the lump and look at all the gorgeous pieces. “I think this is where I belong, Mrs. Delacroix. In Redwood Bay. With Zahir. We’ve both been hiding ourselves away for long enough now. His soul is too beautiful not to be sharing it with the world. He’s already brightened up my life so much in just a few weeks. If I need to kick his ass to express himself again, I will.” I wince. “Uh, sorry for cussing.”

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