Chapter 20

TWENTY

Rhys’s heart rate kicked up with every step he took toward the dais at the front of the room. He hadn’t talked to anyone about what he was about to do except Early. He hadn’t even run it past his parents first. He’d kept Raina’s painting hidden since the night he had finished it, although he was certain his mum had seen it, since she’d taken his first class the day after he’d had his breakdown. To everyone else, though, it would be a surprise.

“Isn’t it about time to start the formal program?” Martin stopped his progress right before Rhys and his mum reached the front of the room. “Some of the donors are getting restless.”

Rhys paused to let Martin know they were about to begin, but Nancy stepped forward before he could say anything.

“It’s always about investors and deals with you, isn’t it,” she said, facing her brother like she was about to go to war with him.

Martin huffed impatiently. “Money isn’t always the root of all evil, Nancy,” he said. “Everything we’re doing tonight is going to a good cause. Mariel would have approved.”

“She might have approved of the cause, but not of the way you’re putting yourself in the spotlight,” Nancy huffed on. “Everything always has to be about you, doesn’t it.”

Rhys scrambled to know what to do. The sibling feud in front of him had clearly been going on for years, probably long before Mariel Flint’s death. It was strange to him, seeing as his entire, extended family had always gotten along, for the most part.

“Stepping up to take charge of something this important is not putting myself in the spotlight,” Martin snapped back, lowering his voice and looking around, as if he cared whether people overheard.

“You’re a hypocrite for championing this cause when you’re a drunk yourself,” Nancy hissed back.

“I’m sober,” Martin said, teeth clenched. “CADD helped me.”

“You say that now, but?—”

“Please,” Rhys said, holding up his hands to stop the argument. Being so close to so much hurt and the fireworks surrounding it was too much for his already raw emotions to handle. “Tonight is about Raina and Mariel, not about any of us.”

“It’s supposed to be about Mariel,” Nancy said, as if she didn’t believe it actually was.

Something pulled together in Rhys’s soul, like he could hear Raina expressing her sadness that two people who should be able to rely on each other were so at odds. That and catching a glimpse of Early’s questioning expression as they watched the conflict from afar filled him with confidence. If Early could sort their family problems enough to make it through the evening then the Flints could, too.

“I appreciate the fact that this tension between the two of you has been going on for a while,” he said, glancing between the two upset siblings. “I know that family struggles are the hardest kind to deal with because at heart, we want our family to be there for us before and above anyone else.”

“He’s never been there for us,” Nancy said, more misery than anger in her voice now.

“I was struggling and you were no help at all,” Martin fired back in return, just as upset.

“Please,” Rhys said again. “We all have more hurt in our lives and in our pasts than any of us want. It doesn’t do any good to throw that hurt around and make it worse. At some point, you just have to accept the other person for who they are and let them be. Grieve the loss of the person you wanted them to be if you have to, but let them be who they are so that you can find yourself as well.”

He fully expected the two siblings to keep their argument going. Neither of them looked like they were about to fall into each other’s arms to beg for forgiveness just because he’d said something pithy, but they both kept their mouths shut.

“Thank you,” Rhys said, checking in with each of them in turn. “Now if you’ll excuse me, you’re right, Martin. We need to get this program started.”

In fact, Rhys’s mum had already reached the dais, where his dad stood as well, along with Nick. All of them had watched the confrontation between Martin and Nancy, and they seemed like they’d been waiting for Rhys to settle things.

As soon as Rhys nodded to his mum, she nodded back, then tapped a knife someone had handed her against her wine glass to get everyone’s attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming to Hawthorne House this evening to attend this memorial fundraiser for my darling Raina Hawthorne-Turner and Mariel Flint,” she began.

A smattering of applause followed as conversations ended and people turned their attention to the front of the room. Rhys stepped up onto the dais to stand with his father and Nick, but as soon as he was in place, he sought out Early in the crowd. Rebecca had found her way over to them, which came as a relief to Rhys. He didn’t want Early to ever have to feel like they were alone, even when he couldn’t be with them.

Early smiled encouragingly at him as soon as their eyes met, and Rhys couldn’t help but grin in return, even though it was a somber occasion. His heart felt so full every time he looked at Early. He didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky as to find someone so brilliant, or how he’d managed to be such a fool by denying his draw toward his lover for so long. All he knew was that he needed Early in his life, now and probably always.

“Even though it’s been more than a year since the tragic accident that took Raina’s and Mariel’s lives, we thought it was fitting to hold this memorial fundraiser to celebrate their lives and to share with you all the ways those lives will continue to help people for years to come,” Rhys’s mum went on. “We’ve partnered with the Campaign Against Drink Driving tonight to hold this silent auction so that money can be raised to further the cause of education and awareness and to make certain tragedies like this never happen again.”

Rhys reached out to touch his mum’s back in support, since her emotions were starting to get the better of her. He suspected it wasn’t just the wine either and that the glass she held was her way of making people think one thing while she allowed herself to feel.

“Around the room you will also find lovely works from the various classes that are taught here at Hawthorne Community Arts Center,” she went on. “Raina was so proud of her students and of the work of our family and the community.” She started to choke up in earnest, which was Rhys’s cue to step in. “I’ve asked my son and Raina’s brother, Rhys, to say a few words about those efforts.”

Rhys hugged his mum briefly, then moved into her place as she slipped back to his dad’s side and hugged him.

Standing in front of a room filled with people who expected him to say something about Raina, Mariel, the accident, and the money they hoped to raise was far more intimidating than Rhys had expected it to be. He didn’t know how he was going to get the words out, or how he was supposed to move on.

“Raina and I were close,” he began, speaking a little too quietly, too much emotion in his voice already. “When you come from a family as large and eclectic as ours, it’s only natural that some of you stick together more than others. Robbie and Nally have a special bond, and our cousins Bax and Blaine are particularly close with their brother, Braydon. And as I understand it, Mariel and Nancy were very close as well.”

Rhys glanced at Nancy, smiling at her, hoping she could see that he understood.

He cleared his throat and continued.

“When you lose someone who you’re so close to, it’s like losing a part of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you’ve lived your entire lives together or if you lose them after a short time, it leaves a hole in your heart that isn’t easy to fill. You can never fill the place where those people belong, you can only patch it with the memories of the love you’ve shared.”

The room was heavy with quiet, and Rhys spotted more than a few people dabbing at their eyes or fighting not to let their emotion show. But that was the point, really. Everybody lost people. It didn’t matter if it was death that took them away from you or conflict and misunderstanding. The set of people you started life with was rarely the set of people you carried with you throughout your entire life. It was the truest and hardest thing that anyone had to accept.

“Raina and I had a spot out in the garden where we liked to sit and figure out the world together,” Rhys went on. He had to pause to clear the burr in his throat that talking about Raina in such intimate terms gave him. “We both painted that view dozens of times over for various projects and different reasons. Shortly after she died, I started a large-scale painting of that same view. My intention was to paint something that would fit in one of the large spaces we have in the front entrance hall. But almost from the start, I could feel that something wasn’t right about it.”

All those emotions welled up within him again, and he quickly sought out Early to be his anchor so that he could go on.

Early and Rebecca clung together, and Early watched him with a wealth of emotion in their eyes, sorrow as well as love. It may have been true that losing the important people from your life was inevitable, but finding new people to fill your heart was equally inevitable, as long as you didn’t let the darkness eat your heart entirely.

“It took Nancy here to make me see what was missing from this painting,” Rhys went on, smiling gratefully at Nancy.

“Me?” Nancy asked, blinking rapidly in surprise.

“Yes. You were absolutely right when you told me that I needed to find the emotion in the work. And the other night, even though it was one of the most painful things I’ve ever discovered,” his voice broke as he spoke, “I found it.”

He stepped aside to the curtain that he’d set up at the last minute. Without anyone’s knowledge but Early’s he’d moved Raina’s landscape into the dining hall and concealed it, waiting for that moment.

When he moved the curtain aside to reveal the painting, the room filled with gasps. His hands shook as he handed the curtain off to Nally, who rushed to help him. As difficult as it had been for Early to strip their body in order to pose for an art class, it felt equally as hard for Rhys to strip his soul so that the world could see that as well.

He peeked anxiously at the room filled with stunned faces as he inched his way back to the center of the dais. He knew some people wouldn’t understand the work. They would see a ruined landscape and nothing else. But others might see what it felt like to lose someone in the mess he’d made.

“The work is called ‘Grief’,” he explained, focusing on Early in the crowd so that he didn’t lose his nerve and try to hide his emotion when it was so important for people to see it. “I don’t think it needs more explanation than that.”

“No, it doesn’t,” his dad spoke behind him. “It’s wonderful.”

Rhys swallowed the lump and turned to smile at his parents. He wasn’t sure how they would feel about the work, but seeing the tears in their eyes now reassured him. They got it. Everything would be okay.

“It isn’t just about this painting either,” he went on. “The process of creating this work has taught me a lot about grief, about love, and about how we need to express those feelings of pain and loss instead of running away from them and pretending everything is fine when it’s not. Because of everything I’ve learned, I will be developing a unique painting class that I’m hoping to include as part of an art therapy program. I’d like to work with therapists and other professionals to create a program that can be offered free of charge to those with the most need for artistic expression like this.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, darling,” his mum said encouragingly, wiping her eyes with her free hand.

One or two people in the crowd began to clap, and within a few seconds an embarrassing swell of applause filled the room. Rhys was grateful for it for Raina’s and Mariel’s sake, but he didn’t feel right standing there on the receiving end of it.

“And now,” he spoke above the noise in order to quiet it, “Martin Flint has a few words he’d like to say about the silent auction, and then we can all have a seat and enjoy the amazing food that’s been prepared for us tonight by Leland Page and his crew.”

Rhys’s mum stepped forward to throw her arms around him in a tight, proud hug as Martin came up onto the dais. His dad hugged him as well as Martin started to speak. Rhys didn’t really hear what Martin had to say, but it didn’t matter. His part in the fundraiser that he’d been so deeply against at first was over. He had the future to look forward to now.

When his dad let him go, Nick stepped forward to shake his hand. “Thank you,” he said, tugging Rhys into a brotherly hug. Coming from a man as large as Nick, who had blacksmith’s arms, it almost felt like being crushed. “Raina would be so proud of you. She always was.”

“Thanks,” Rhys said in reply, squeezing Nick.

He moved to the side to listen to the rest of Martin’s speech about the money they would raise and how it would go to help CADD. Martin spoke about Mariel as well, and while Nancy listened with love and sadness in her eyes, Rhys felt like the two of them still had a long way to go before things were right between them. At least he had been able to help them start down the right path.

As soon as Martin was finished speaking, Rhys couldn’t get off the dais and across the crowded room to Early fast enough.

“That was beautiful,” Early said after Rebecca had taken a turn to hug him, too. “And the idea of art therapy classes is wonderful.”

“It certainly is,” Rebecca said. She grinned at Early and said, “Tell him what you just told me.”

Rhys lifted his eyebrows and turned to his amazing lover.

Early lowered their head sheepishly, then peeked up at him. “I’ve been thinking of possibly trying to get into university,” they said. “I feel like I would do well as a psychologist or counselor of some sort, maybe working with art and with young people.”

Rhys burst into a grin. “You’d be brilliant at it,” he said.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Rebecca said, giving Early a wink.

“I can’t afford it,” Early started.

“Don’t worry about the money,” Rhys stopped them before they could find a way to talk themself out of it. “You’ll go to whichever university you choose on the Hawthorne family scholarship.”

“Rhys,” Early said scoldingly, their look almost quelling.

It was so sweet and exciting that Rhys laughed. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said, sweeping Early into his arms and kissing them. “Right now, we’ve got supper to eat.”

Early sucked in a breath and snapped straighter. “I said I’d help Leland. I need to go.”

“I’ll come with you and help, too,” Rhys said, following Early when he let them go.

The noise volume in the room had doubled since the speeches ended and everyone headed to the tables to find a seat. For a moment, Rhys thought Early would get ahead of him and he’d lose them entirely. He managed to dodge a few people who wanted a word with him and to catch up to Early just inside the kitchen.

Instead of letting Early rush to help Leland and his staff, Rhys grabbed their hand and pulled them over to a relatively quiet corner.

“I need to help,” Early laughed as Rhys pulled them into his arms.

“You already are helping, baby,” he said, using the name he planned to only use in their most intimate moments together.

Early clearly caught the significance as well. Their face went hot as Rhys caressed it and tilted it up to him. “You can’t kiss me in a crowded room like this, with everyone watching,” they whispered, though their eyes said something different.

“Really?” Rhys said. “I can’t kiss my amazing lover, who just told their parents we’re together, who helped organize this event, and who plans to conquer university and make the world a better place by helping people? You don’t think that deserves a kiss?”

Early laughed low in their throat and lowered their eyes, but only for a moment. “Alright,” they said. “I guess you can kiss me.”

Rhys caressed Early’s face again, then leaned in to kiss them with far more passion than was appropriate for a busy kitchen. Better still, Early made the sweetest, sexiest sound in the back of their throat and melted into the kiss.

Rhys was seriously tempted to cut the entire evening short and to take Early upstairs to finish things off with fireworks. Early deserved all the public glory they could get that evening, though. Their fireworks would come later.

“I love you,” he said, unable to stop smiling. “I know we said we’d put those particular words away for the time being, but I can’t help it. I love you, and I want to keep on loving you for as long as you’ll let me.”

“I love you, too,” Early said, a light in their eyes that was new and wonderful. “And I want to be with you for as close to always as we can get.”

“We’ll do it,” Rhys said, feeling as though they were starting something that would last a long, long time. Raina would love to see him this happy. “We’ll be together and we’ll have each other’s back always. I believe in you. I believe in us.”

“Thank you,” Early said, touching the side of Rhys’s face. They smiled and said, “Now let’s get out there and have a party that would make Raina proud.”

Rhys laughed. Raina would be proud of him, of Early, and of the entire family.