Chapter Text
The fundamental of Frank’s paintings was his outlook on life, his perception of reality through the lens of his own experience. He considered himself someone that looks at the bright side of things, a glass is half full optimist. The last few years had made him doubt that part of himself.
This afternoon, he worked on his sketches. They gave him a base foundation to build on his paintings from, and it gave him a chance to just empty whatever was in his head on any given day. Sketches of Tess, Joel, Sarah, Ellie, mostly, since they’d been the people he’d been most recently with. He’d done a few sketches while at their house, too, including several of Ellie making ridiculous faces. Tess leaning on the counter. Joel mowing the lawn. Sarah’s smile as she played guitar. She’d been teaching Ellie, who had taken to it like a fish to water. Soon the household would need another guitar at the rate they were going.
Frank’s phone buzzed next to him, then again. He ignored the incoming call, finishing up the new sketch he’d started. Sometimes, when he could remember their faces well, he’d sketch clients. A few sketches of Kevin, a few pages back. An absolutely hot customer he’d had a couple of weeks ago had just been passing through town, never to be seen again, which suited Frank fine. He loved getting to know them, but he also let them go. That was the job. At first it had made him sad, but now he welcomed the ebb and flow of it. He wondered sometimes where they went when they didn’t come back, but they were small, easy losses compared to his marriage.
He looked down at the sketch and sighed. Bill. In fact, there were about five sketches of Bill, somewhat unexpected. Frank knew what he was doing as he drew, but something in him just didn’t care. If Bill was what came to mind, Bill was who he sketched. But this seemed to be a lot of pictures of one specific customer, which gave him pause.
There was something about Bill that stuck with Frank, and he hoped that Bill would come back. Assuming Bill kept on the same schedule as usual, Frank would see him the next day, on Thursday (assuming Bill came in on the same day a third week in a row). Frank couldn’t help but think that Wednesday would feel longer.
Why was it the antisocial man whose head he’d collided with be the one that he couldn’t stop thinking about? Probably because in Frank’s line of work, someone who took a moment to know him beyond whatever persona he was wearing at the time was a rare thing.
Frank touched off the highlights and shadows of Bill’s hair, then sat back and rubbed at his eyes. He needed a break. He picked up his phone to text Tess, where he found a missed call.
Salim Hasad.
Frank felt a chill run down his spine, glad that the subsequent voicemail had been transcribed to text. He didn’t want to hear Salim’s voice. He read the message, then threw the phone down onto the couch and headed back into the kitchen. This was the kind of shit he didn’t need today. He thought about the few beers he had in the fridge, then he walked back out and picked up his phone to listen to the message.
“Hey Frank. Long time. I guess.” A familiar voice, a deep breath. “I wanted to ask if I could get one of your paintings of me for my mother. I mean, if you still have them. I’m sorry this is out of nowhere. Let me know.” A silence stretched on before the voicemail hung up.
“Fuck.” He didn’t want to call Salim back, especially as he couldn’t recall if he’d kept those paintings or not. He’d taken everything from that part of his life and packed it into his mother’s basement. He certainly didn’t want to try to have a conversation with Salim, either.
Instead, he called his mother, Dolores. “Hi Frank,” she answered, her usually chirpy tone. “You never call, you never write…!”
“Yeah, yeah. I texted you last week, Ma!”
“I know, angel.” No matter how long it had been since she left Alabama, a touch of her southern accent came through. “This about that painting?”
Frank cringed. “He called you first?”
“He certainly didn’t want to call you. I think he was worried you’d burned everything.”
“He doesn’t think I’m that terrible, does he?” Even though it shouldn’t still hurt, it hurt.
“He’s knows you’re sentimental. But he also knows you were mad.”
Well, that’s what happens when someone takes a job in another state and doesn’t tell their husband until it’s been finalized, although Frank certainly wasn’t innocent, not after becoming an emotionally shut down disaster, or after fucking Jorge. “Did you tell him you still had the paintings of him?”
“I told him you had some, and that he’d have to talk to you.”
Frank groaned. “Great, so now I have to return his phone call.”
“No one told me that I was supposed to lie to Salim about artwork,” his mother pointed out. “You might just want to get it over with.”
Good ol’ Ma, always efficient. “I can come check before work.”
“Great. Mel is here, maybe she can help.” He could almost see her grinning. “I’ll put out the cheese plate.”
She hung up the phone, and Frank had to laugh, just a little. His mother could never put out a simple cheese plate, it would be an ordeal that would lead into dinner. So Frank prepped everything he needed for work that night and headed over to his mother’s house. He was fortunate that it only took fifteen minutes, and he pulled up to the light green house, taking a moment to compose himself. Years ago, when his parents were still married, they’d lived in Baltimore. He’d moved to Boston for college, and over time, the rest of his family ended up living in the area.
His mother and her husband, Randy, had eventually bought this house, with a generous wrap around deck, and a staggering variety of hydrangeas in the yard. At last count, there were 34 varieties. His mother’s favorite, though, was the “Dear Dolores” variety. She claimed that she’d been so delighted to find a hydrangea that shared a name with her that she decided she wanted the house. At least, that’s the story she liked to tell.
Frank headed up the front stairs to the covered deck. The door burst open and his sister, Melody, threw her arms around him. “Frank!”
“Mel!” He hugged her, setting his chin on the top of her head. “How are you?”
“Better now that you’re here.” She pulled back and grinned. “Duncan and Randy went fishing and the girls are in school. Gives me a little bit of peace and quiet.”
Frank entered the house, the delicate smell of dried lavender in the air. He found his mother sitting on a stool in the kitchen, next to an impressive charcuterie tray and a vase filled with hydrangea. She couldn’t stand as long as she used to, but she could still put together a cheese plate and have it arranged perfectly. He hugged her, then snagged a piece of salami from the tray along with a slide of Gouda. He chewed on it to distract himself from whatever he was going to have to say next. Can I go look at the paintings that are so painful to look at that I hid them in your basement?
“Hi Ma,” he managed instead.
“I didn’t tell him which paintings were here,” she drawled. “You’re welcome to tell him to shove it if you’d rather. Hell, I can do it if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.” Frank sat down on a chair next to her. “He’s my ex.”
“Your father is my ex, but that doesn’t mean he’s always my problem.” She chuckled.
“He’s mostly Jeff’s problem,” Melody asserted, lingering near another chair. “And a lot less problems than he used to be. So, do you want to go get this over with?”
“We can’t just tell him the basement flooded and everything was destroyed?” Frank asked, loading up a cracker with Brie and fig jam and stuffing it into his mouth.
“Afraid not.” Melody tugged at his arm. “Come on. It’s not so bad. I can even ship it for you if you want.”
His mother waved them away. “I’ve got some ham and scalloped potatoes, too. You’ll have to move fast to beat Mel, I’ll heat it up.”
“I can’t eat that much potato, Ma!” Mel called, dragging Frank to the basement stairs. She opened the door and it swung open with a sharp creak. She flipped on the light, descending down the creaky, narrow staircase. “It’s nice to see you, even if the circumstances could have been better.”
“Same.” He smiled despite everything. “We’re still planning on family dinner next month, right?”
“That’s the plan. It’s still up the air as to where we’re doing it. We’d planned on here, but our other brother says he’s got a surprise that might change that.”
“That sounds like he found a house, finally.”
“He won’t say. But it’s entirely likely, at this point.” Melody edged her way through the crowded basement. “Glad I wore jeans today. Ma’s got a lot of crafting stuff down here, too.”
Frank sidestepped a giant tub labeled yarn. His mother loved creating things, but had more hobbies than she could keep up with. “I noticed.” He followed Melody to the far side of the basement, to what was once a dark room but now was storage for paintings that Frank couldn’t fit in his apartment.
Melody stepped aside and let him through and he flipped on the light switch as he walked through the door. She peered in past him. “You should just do a showing, Frank. You’ve got gold in here!”
Frank snorted. “It’s not that easy.” He started flipping through the closest stack of paintings. “I put in an application for a show in December. A full showing, just my work. They probably won’t take it, but I figured I’d try. I’ve sold a few paintings up at Gabby’s shop, too.”
“Well, yeah, they’re not gonna take it with that attitude!” Melody leaned against the door frame.
Sometimes Frank forgot how many paintings he really had around still, from all stages of his artistic development. “I really need to buy a house someday,” he muttered, flipping through a pile of landscapes. He hadn’t organized them in any sort of reasonable way, but in a way, that helped.
A whole history of his art was here, from his earlier pieces, through his different stages. An ebb and flow of life, of energy, and he felt the lack of it since Salim was gone. He didn’t even think it was the loss of Salim, it was something else that nagged at him.
He got to a section of pictures of Salim, and expected to feel a drop of sadness. It never came. Instead Frank was struck with the frenetic energy of his lines. He blinked, staring, then flipped to the next one. Also Salim.
“Did he say which one he wanted?” Melody asked, idly flipping through a stack closer to her.
“He didn’t. At least not to me. But there’s one in here…” He flipped through several more paintings. “This one.” He carefully tugged it free, holding it up in front of him. “This had been his favorite.” Salim, bent over his guitar, his face lifted into the sunlight. Surrounded by the plants that filled their space. But what struck Frank is when he did this picture. It wasn’t even during the happiest time; it had been early in the pandemic, when everything was difficult, complicated. So how did this have a vibrancy that his current work didn’t have? There’s a relaxation to the strokes, a flow, that felt forced lately.
“Oh wow, that’s gorgeous.” Melody pulled out another painting, one of butterflies. “Frank, these are all gorgeous. They’ll absolutely invite you to do the show.”
“I don’t know.” He slipped the painting out of the room and set it out of the way. “I feel like I used to be a better painter.”
“Maybe you’re just evolving. We all do that.” She reached out and touched the painting in front of her. “The thing is, you’ve been through a lot in the last year. A job change, a divorce, a move, that all adds up. It throws you off. You got used to creating with pressure on you, constantly. From work, from Salim.”
Frank drew in a breath, letting his gaze go over each of the paintings he could see. “Kind of like, maybe I used this as an outlet, and now I have a lot less to escape from? I’m not sure if that’s helpful. I’m faced with a disaster life and good art, or a calm life and feeling creatively stuck? I don’t love either.”
“I don’t think you’re stuck with anything. I think you need to step back and find the thing that works for you.” She paused. “Is your living room the only place you paint?”
“What’s wrong with my living room?”
“Nothing! But you used to paint here, or in different rooms, or in parks. Maybe it’s change of scenery.” She thought for a moment. “Why don’t you just take your sketchbook to work and sneak in some sketches between dances? It’ll give you a little bit of pressure to move quickly, and you won’t have time to be a perfectionist.” She punched playfully at his shoulder. “Besides, you’d have no shortage of material.”
Something now itched at Frank. “I could bring a sketchbook,” he admitted. He tended do everything from memory when he got home, perhaps Mel was onto something.
“Lucky for you, Ma has too many, grab another one and ask her.” Melody grinned and moved towards a shelf full of unused sketchbooks. “She’s not using them, you may as well.” She tugged down a bin full of pencils and flicked it open. “Ma hoards art supplies like some people hoard for the apocalypse.”
Frank pulled down a sketchbook, a smaller one to stash more easily, and picked out a box of pencils in different sizes. For good measure, he picked out a couple of pens as well. “There, happy?”
“If you are, you know I am.”
He grinned. “Good enough.”
Melody gestured back at the paintings. “Let’s shove my stupidly talented brother’s stuff back in the room until he gets off his ass and does a show with it.”
They put the paintings back in the room, and Frank looked at them differently, trying to remember the times in his life that he created them. Melody wasn’t wrong. A lot of his best paintings seemed connected to stressful times. He wasn’t sure if he painted better while he was stressed, or if now the relative quiet was just another type of stress that he didn’t know what to do with.
When they were done, they were left with the one. “Just let me text him to make sure this is it.” He wasn’t even sure how he’d ship this to Salim. He couldn’t afford shipping on something this large, so that’s something he’d have to deal with. Pulling out his phone, he snapped a picture of the painting and texted it to Salim.
Is this the one? Can you cover shipping? He hated to ask because maybe it sounded petty, but Frank didn’t have any alternative.
A pause, then the message was read. Another message came back almost immediately. Thanks, that’s the one I was thinking. I’m glad you kept it. Happy to pay for shipping. He added his address.
Frank let out a breath of relief, then his phone rang. Of course Salim would follow up with a call. Frank considered ignoring it, but Melody shook her head and carried the painting, sketchbook, and pencils off, starting back up the stairs. That left him to answer the phone. He hadn’t talked to Salim in a year, and the thought of doing it now made him wonder if he’d have to go puke in his mother’s washing machine. Now that would be awkward.
Damnit. He put on his best “there’s nothing wrong” face even though Salim wouldn’t see it, then answered the phone. “Hello,” he greeted, putting himself in the mindset that this was someone else. Not his ex-husband.
“Hey Frank.”
Salim sounded far too composed and Frank hated it. He wasn’t prepared for the calmness of Salim’s voice, a calmness he hadn’t heard since everything started to go wrong between them.
“Sorry to call,” Salim continued. “I don’t know what time you have to be at work.”
“Soon, but I have a few.” Noncommittal enough but gave him an out.
“I appreciate it.” Salim drew in a breath. “Mom’s not doing well. We’re headed out there to go see her, so I’m trying to get the painting delivered on a rush.”
Frank caught the use of we and he fought the urge to ask. “I can ship it tomorrow. I can front it and let you know. PayPal still okay?” God it felt like a weird internet purchase at this point, and Frank didn’t know what to make of that.
“Yeah.” Salim fell silent for a moment. “I wanted to ask if you could maybe…” He drew in a breath. “I need a favor.”
Frank frowned. “So going through these old shit memories isn’t enough of a favor?”
“Frank-“
“This is bullshit. I just went through all of these pictures, and you’re asking for more.” This was how everything started to fall apart in the first place. Neither one could draw great boundaries.
“Frank. Stop being an asshole.” There’s that Salim bite, and for a moment Frank felt satisfaction. “Mom’s dying.”
Frank froze. God damnit. “I don’t know what you think I can do.”
“She’s forgetting people. She still remembers you, and she still adores you.”
“Salim, I-“ Frank stopped. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” Every protest he had evaporated. Amani had been kind to him, even though she hadn’t always been able to support them. There’d been a time when that had been hard for Frank to accept, but Amani had loved him in her way. Which is more than could be said for the rest of Salim’s family. He reminded Frank a lot of his own mother. “What do you need?”
“Can you record a little video for her? Just to say hello.”
Frank swallowed. He started to wander back towards the room of paintings and put Salim on speakerphone. Frank sighed. What would it hurt? Other than himself, but this wasn’t about him. It was about a woman slipping away who needed comfort. Frank had given away so much comfort every day, more of himself than he could reasonably manage, and now Salim was asking him to do the same. The same man who criticized him for putting others above himself. And now this man asked Frank for help. To make his mother feel better, while also letting slip that he was dating someone new.
“Yeah. I’ll do it.” Damnit. Still a pushover.
Frank heard another male voice in the background who he presumed was the other half of we. Frank heard the rather obvious sound of a kiss. “Sorry. That’s Darren.”
It stung, but not as hard as Frank thought it would. The worst was the pang of sorrow, because Frank didn’t feel like he was ready to try again. On the other hand, it had been a year. But it hurt a little that Salim moved on while Frank felt like he still picked up the pieces. “Tell him your asshole ex says hi.”
Salim chuckled, but it was tinged with strain. “You’re not an asshole, you just can be an asshole. For what it’s worth.”
“That’s generous. I think.” Frank looked through the paintings and found one of a beautiful lantern that had been in Amani’s home. Even if she didn’t remember it, maybe it would evoke some memory. “Can I send her another painting? Just something bright. It won’t be anything huge. I’ll cover any extra shipping. Your mother was good to me. It’s the least I can do.”
“She’d…” His voice hitched with what sounded like repressed tears.” She’d really love that, Frank.”
Frank decided to spare them both the pain of this conversation going any further. “I’ll send a good one. Give me a couple of days on the video. I gotta go.”
“Yeah. Me too.” A sigh. “Thanks.”
Frank hung up before they could discuss anymore, or before he said something he’d be mad at himself for. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but a relief settled over him. He felt lighter, more optimistic, which he shouldn’t. Talking to Salim should have been upsetting, but instead, it felt like a closure. Send him one last piece of art to be kind, and move along. They’d been good together, at one point. Amazing together, even. But stress and the rigors of life had been too much, and had changed them both. Frank liked the person he had become more than the person he’d been then.
Frank tucked the picture under his arm and closed up the room before going back upstairs.
He reached for the light switch when he got to the top, and then his ankle gave out, rolling outwards. Frank careened into the wall with a thump, and managed to keep himself from dropping the painting. Pain shot through his ankle and he leaned against the railing, pulling himself up the last two stairs. Well, that was going to make work awful, but at this point, he’d have to ice it, wrap it, and hope for the best. He could wear his taller pair of boots that he had in his car, and that would hold it steady enough.
By all rights, he should probably just call in, but he needed the money, and he needed the distraction.
So fuck it, he’d eat all the scalloped potatoes he could get, even if he had to arm wrestle Mel, because tonight was about to be a long night.