“Of course you have.”

“No, I let you see I was disappointed you didn’t choose to paint. That was selfish of me. I know better than most that a woman’s path must be her own.”

“You never tried to talk me out of going to New York or moving into commercial art. And I do paint still,” she added with a bolstering smile. “I’ve nearly finished a still life I think you’ll like.”

Why hadn’t she brought the canvas with her? Damn it, why hadn’t she thought to pack up some paints, even a sketchbook so that she could have sat with her mother and given her the pleasure of watching?

“That’s one of my favorites there.” Amanda gestured to the portrait on the parlor wall. “The one of your father, sleeping in the chaise in the garden.”

“Gearing himself up to mow the lawn,” Shannon said with a chuckle. Setting the cloth aside, she took the seat beside the bed. “And every time we said why didn’t he hire a lawn boy, he’d claim that he enjoyed the exercise, and go out and fall asleep.”

“He never failed to make me laugh. I miss that.” She brushed a hand over Shannon’s wrist. “I know you miss him, too.”

“I still think he’s going to come busting in the front door. ‘Mandy, Shannon,’ he’d say, ‘get on your best dresses, I’ve just made my client ten thousand on the market, and we’re going out to dinner.’ ”

“He did love to make money,” Amanda mused. “It was such a game to him. Never dollars and cents, never greed or selfishness there. Just the fun of it. Like the fun he had moving from place to place every couple of years. ‘Let’s shake this town, Mandy. What do you say we try Colorado? Or Memphis?’ ”

She shook her head on a laugh. Oh, it was good to laugh, to pretend for just a little while they were only talking as they always had. “Finally when we moved here, I told him I’d played gypsy long enough. This was home. He settled down as if he’d only been waiting for the right time and place.”

“He loved this house,” Shannon murmured. “So did I. I never minded the moving around. He always made it an adventure. But I remember, about a week after we’d settled in, sitting up in my room and thinking that I wanted to stay this time.” She smiled over at her mother. “I guess we all felt the same way.”

“He’d have moved mountains for you, fought tigers.” Amanda’s voice trembled before she steadied it. “Do you know, Shannon, really know how much he loved you?”

“Yes.” She lifted her mother’s hand, pressed it to her cheek. “I do know.”

“Remember it. Always remember it. I’ve things to tell you, Shannon, that may hurt you, make you angry and confused. I’m sorry for it.” She drew a breath.

There’d been more in the dream than the love and the grief. There had been urgency. Amanda knew she wouldn’t have even the stingy three weeks the doctor had promised her.