“If someone actually lets me in, why don’t you go get a coffee or something?” I say to Oliver. “I can call when I’m ready to leave. I don’t want you to have to—”

“I’m waiting right here,” he says. “I have a book with me. You don’t need to rush.”

I think he’s as uptight about this as I am. “Okay.” I look toward the green door. “I don’t know whether to hope she’s home or hope she’s not.”

He gives me a gentle shove. “One way to find out,” he says.

I nod. Open the van door. Start walking up the driveway. I’m empty-handed and suddenly wish I could have thought of something to bring her. I considered flowers. Homemade cookies. Nothing felt right. I would have to make do with myself and my words. I tell myself I survived prison, restored a mural when I had no idea what I was doing, and haven’t had a drink in a year and a half. I can do this. I’m so much stronger than I ever thought I could be.

I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the incredible power of this last year. Working together with Oliver in the gallery. Making discoveries so few people had the privilege to know about. Learning that Judith Shipley is my great-grandmother. My good fortune seems to hit me all at once. What if Jesse Williams had never even known my name? I’d still be in prison. Still spending my nights wide awake, waiting for my silent roommate to slit my throat with a dull butter knife. Still wondering what I could possibly do with my ruined life once I got out. Still with no goals, no love, no passion of any sort.

I climb the front steps, my mind suddenly on Judith. I think of how she was able to face hard truths, writing about them in her journal, painting them into the mural for all the world to see, and then setting them aside, rebuilding her life and moving on. “You have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future,” she said.

Taking a deep breath, I raise my hand to the doorbell. I hear it chime inside and I stand tall, waiting to see what my own future holds.

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AUTHOR’S NOTES

After my first visit to the charming town of Edenton, North Carolina, I knew I would someday set a book there. It wasn’t until I read about the ‘48 State Mural Competition’ sponsored by the Treasury Department during the Great Depression that I could envision a story that might fit the small town. I should note that Edenton’s post office was not the actual North Carolina recipient of a mural—that honor went to the post office in Boone. But to my mind, Edenton’s history and industry lent itself perfectly to such a mural.