Every Bright and Broken Thing

Chapter Forty-Six - Ezra

I remember Mama Gracie's words to me all those weeks ago. "If healing is to have its way, then you're going to have to face what's broken."

"Okay," I say and turn to Liam, the hesitation evident in his eyes.

"Bill Everett will never step foot in our church again," Dad says firmly. "And... after this Sunday, I'll be taking a three month sabbatical."

My eyes widen. "What? Why?"

Dad just smiles at me. "It's time for us to be a family again. And for this season I can't have my focus split in two different directions."

I glance at Liam, his eyes aimed downward.

Silence fills the dining room as we wait for his answer.

"Okay," he says, his tone unsure.

"I love you boys," Dad says, looking from one of us to the other. "Your mother would be – she is – so, so proud of you. Both of you. You have both been... so strong." His voice cracks as he eyes us, but the smile is fixed firmly on his face. Then, to Elaine, he says, "Thank you for taking care of my boy."

She smiles and holds a hand out to him. He takes it, then holds his other hand out to Liam who takes it. And in one hand, I hold Elaine's free hand. In the other, I hold Liam's. Together, we form a circle that, I think, no force could ever break.

"Welcome home."

Leaving Elaine and Liam to their conversation on the couch, I wander up the stairs and find my old bedroom, across the hall from Liam's. Inside, it's just as I left it. My bed is made and sports trophies line my book shelves. But I move toward my desk to find the thing I'm really interested in. Opening one of the drawers, I dig through a pile of notebooks and scattered sketches and empty canvases. I pull one out and prop it up on the easel in the corner of my room.

Slipping my shirt over my head to keep paint from getting all over it, I slide the crate of paint supplies out from under my bed. Pulling my phone from my pocket and reading my notes over again, I choose my colors and begin to mix them on a wooden palette.

With a deep breath and a last look at the blank canvas in front of me, I start to paint. The colors, the emotions spill from my fingertips and begin to form something extraordinary in front of me, something I didn't know I had spent my whole life waiting for. The world around me comes alive like magic with every stroke – as if I've stepped out of a noir film and into a technicolor dream.

As I paint, Elaine appears in the doorway behind me. She doesn't say a word – just watches.

When I'm done – a couple hours later – and covered in splatters of paint, I step back and look at the finished canvas in front of me.

On it is an image of the deep black universe with pinprick stars in the middle of all the black. But the bottom half of the painting is filled with something else. An astronaut standing on a surfboard looks forward at the endless universe. And his ocean? A sea of stars. Color and light so bright and electric that it forms the crashing waves on which he rides.

"It's beautiful," Elaine whispers from behind me.

I turn to face her and I smile. "Is this what it feels like?"

"What?"

"The waking up?"

She smiles, blinks, and nods slowly. I notice a single tear roll down her cheek and fall to the carpet. "Yeah," she whispers. "I think so."

I turn back to study the painting again.

Bright.

The astronaut and his sea of stars.

Bright.

The feeling that I am on my way home.

Bright.

Elaine's presence as she comes closer and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with me, eyes on the painting as if it were a living, moving, breathing thing.

Bright.

The memory of Mom and all her joy. Of Papa Wilbur and his war stories. Of Mama Gracie and her wisdoms.

Bright.

That Dad and Liam are here in the same place as me.

Bright.

Finally. The answer to Mom's last question. If you could paint just one picture to save your life, what would it be?

And now I know.

Bright.