Anna returned her gaze to the woman in the painting. “She had an illness called manic-depressive psychosis,” she said. “That means she would be very happy and energetic—extremely energetic—for a while—sometimes months—and then she’d be very sad for just as long. Her sadness this time lasted and lasted and … it just didn’t let up. My aunt Alice thought she needed to go into the hospital where they’d…” She didn’t want to have to explain the electroshock treatments and all of that with him. “I didn’t think she needed to go and she didn’t want to go. My aunt tried to insist, but I finally won the argument.” Anna felt her lower lip start to tremble and she bit down on it to stop the quiver. Jesse was so still and quiet that she barely knew he was next to her. “I came home from job hunting one day,” she said, “and I couldn’t find her. I knew she was home because I could see her car through the windows in the garage door. I called for her. Walked around the house. Finally I went out to the garage.” Anna shut her eyes, her hands locked tight on the back of the chair. Jesse waited, still as stone next to her. “She’d hung herself from the beams in the garage ceiling.” She lifted a hand to her mouth, pressing her fist against her lips, wishing she could block out the image she would never forget. Her mother’s grotesque, almost unrecognizable face. Eyes wide open, features twisted, her skin gray. She had suffered; that much was clear. Anna could feel the beams of the warehouse high above her. She did not look up. “Aunt Alice had been right,” she said to Jesse. “She needed to go to the hospital, but I was too—”

“Weren’t your fault,” Jesse said, force in his voice. “Not no way.”

His words jerked her out of the memory, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

“I’m sorry I told you all that,” she said finally. “It’s just … I’m not myself today. It’s all I can think about. Her birthday. And that she’s not here.”

“Maybe don’t work today?” he suggested softly. “Go someplace quiet.”

She looked at him. “Have you ever lost someone special?” she asked.

“Ever’one of my grandparents,” he said.

She moved toward the mural and leaned against her paint table, arms folded across her chest. “Were you close to them?” she asked.

“Only really my granny. My mother’s mama. Two year ago, she left us. There was a big funeral and lots of food and talkin’ and you know what I did?” He widened his gentle doe eyes, waiting for her response.

“What did you do?”