“Yes, that. Well, about ten years ago I started. It all began because I wanted to surprise Mother with a painting of her garden. She was obsessed with her garden.”

“Oh, I remember.”

My heart reached for Hutch, and I looked away to continue. “Anyway, I was trying to paint the entire garden, but found I would get consumed with a single flower. And that is how it started, and I’m still going. I guess I could never stop, really. There are more flowers than I could ever paint. Even when a flower looks ordinary, close up, each one has something extraordinary about it.”

“Just like you.” His voice was quiet and true. He meant those words; he’d said them before.

“That’s … sweet.”

“Did you take classes or anything like that?”

“I did. I’ve taken a few at the art institute. But the truth is I’ve always done it for myself—for the time in the studio and attic. For how I feel when I’m painting. That’s why—for how I feel when I’m doing it. Don’t get me wrong—the art show was one of the most special nights of my life and also the last night with my mother—but mostly I paint for the feeling I have when I’m with it.”

“I know.”

I tilted my head.

“I get that way with my projects …”

“Like this one? The Woman of the Year project?”

“Exactly. So, did you find out … anything?”

“I did.” While we ate hush puppies and drank our cold beers, I told Hutch what Birdie had told me.

“Wow. Your mother.”

“I know. I can barely imagine this woman.”

He picked up the empty basket. “So.” He smiled. “You weren’t hungry?”

“Should we get more?”

“Yes.” He motioned for the waitress and two more beers, and another basket landed on our table.

His hand rested on the top of the table, his left leg stretched out. He smiled at me with that same genuine affability that had opened my heart all those years ago, an unmeasured kindness that filled empty places. The languid humidity of the outdoor restaurant loosened that tenuous grip on the disappearing line between past and present.

“That’s all I know,” I said. Silence pulled us apart, the gap that had closed between us opening wide again.

He laughed and I looked at him; his gaze was across the room. “Old Tommy-boy over there.” He nodded toward a man at the bar. “Has no idea what he’s getting himself into tonight.”