Anna came to stand next to him, buttoning her smock over her blouse. The woman was looking out the window, and her large eyes, so much like Jesse’s, gave her identity away. Slowly, she nodded. “Your mother,” she said. “Without a doubt.” The angle of the fading daylight on the woman’s bare arms was not quite right, but she thought it best to let him see that on his own. “Did she model for you?”

“I sketched it while she was washin’ dishes,” he said, chuckling. “Then she hollered at me for jest sittin’ around, doin’ nothin’ worthwhile.”

“Did you show her the sketch?”

“Nah, it’s gonna be a surprise, this paintin’.” He nodded toward the easel. “Next week’s her birthday so this’ll be her present.”

“Oh, she’ll love it,” Anna said, hoping that was the truth. A beat of silence followed, then without thinking, she said, “Today would have been my mother’s birthday.”

She felt Jesse’s eyes on her but kept her own gaze on his painting, her hands resting on the back of the chair in front of the easel.

“Would’ve been?” he asked.

“She died in November,” she said. “Just a couple of weeks before I came here.” She glanced at him. “She killed herself.” It was the first time she’d said those words out loud. Why she said them to Jesse but not Miss Myrtle, not Pauline, she had no idea. But there they were, a burden of syllables dumped on the shoulders of a seventeen-year-old boy.

“Damn,” he said. “How … I mean … why she do that?”