Page 30 of The Leaving Kind

Why Sage never used the key hidden under a rock by the front door, Victor would never know. Or simply keep a key to the house he’d grown up in.

He was an odd child. Really, both of his children were odd in their own, wonderful ways.

Victor opened the door and grinned at the sight of his son and his grandson. “Hello, hello!”

He put his arms out and Sage handed off his squirming bundle of joy. “Billy wanted to visit.”

“Mm-hmm.” Victor pressed a noisy kiss to the side of Billy’s warm head. He smelled like cheesy crackers. Shifting Billy to his hip, he held out his other arm and gave his son a quick hug. “Lovely to see you.” He frowned. “What day is it?”

“Saturday.”

“Of course, it is.” He’d been working on painting number six for four days and all he had was too much red and green, and too many vertical lines. Wonderful. Also, most of his trees were still in the driveway. Where was his deliciously defined landscape artist?

“Has Tholo been in touch?” Sage was eyeing him with concern.

“What? No. I’ve been painting.” Victor carried Billy into the family room and set him down near the box of toys he’d pulled out of the garage a few months ago. He smiled fondly at the naked doll resting on top of the mixture of plastic food, numbered blocks—brightly colored and mostly indestructible plastic. He had always enjoyed watching his children play and derived the same satisfaction out of trying to guess which toy Billy would go after first and what game he would make out of it.

“The movement series?” Sage flopped onto the couch with a soft sigh. “This week, one of our artists submitted a cover concept that made me think of you. Let me see if I have it on my phone.” He lifted a hip and dug into the pocket of his dark jeans.

“What’s Ashni up to today?” Victor asked.

“Girls’ day out. They have tickets to a matinee in the city and might do dinner afterward.”

“Oh? What show?” It had been ages since Victor had ventured into Manhattan. He’d continued to haunt Brooklyn for a while after he and Tez had returned home to the Poconos to raise children together. For a few years, they’d carted their babies over to Park Slope and squashed onto the couches in the tiny apartments of well-intentioned friends before deciding they’d rather be the weekend getaway spot. For the next fifteen-or-so years, they’d hosted a different group every other week.

It had been nice. Nowadays, Victor much preferred the quiet of having the house to himself, but he still often felt a pull toward New York. Maybe Tez would be up for catching a show—though he really must stop relying on Tez for company. Did his missing landscaper ever visit the city? Was he into theater? Art?

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Where’d you go? I was telling you about the show Ashni went to see and you were, like, a million miles away.”

“Oh, sorry. Got lost somewhere down memory lane.”

Concern returned to haunt Sage’s gray eyes. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”

Victor flapped a hand. “Work isn’t going well, so I’m feeling a bit drifty. That’s all.”

Sage showed him the cover art commission, and Victor could see why his son had thought he might like it. The style was hauntingly similar to Victor’s, with large abstractions and tiny details. But the energy of the piece felt different, as well as the color choices. The subject, another matter entirely. Victor didn’t paint people. Not anymore. He captured nature. Landscapes, mostly, in bold lines and blocks of color.

The picture on Sage’s phone featured the outline of two people with heads bent together. It resembled the view through an infrared camera, with the centers of the figures a blazing red and concentric rings of cooler color radiating outward. The detail was at the heart of each figure, where the artist had inscribed sketchy mechanicals.

“This is stunning work,” Victor said. “Thanks for showing it to me.”

“Sure.” Sage glanced at the screen, his eyes lighting with a measure of pride before he shut off the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket. “It’s for a book I found. A manuscript. From the slush pile. Two weeks after I started with Hot House.”

Ah. “Congratulations on seeing a project to completion.”

Sage blushed. “I had very little input. I don’t even know if they used the notes I submitted.” He shrugged. “But the fact I found it definitely upped my cred.”

“I’m sure it did.”

Billy smacked the naked doll onto the carpet three times and said, “Boom!”

Victor side-eyed his son. “Have you been playing Warhammer in front of your impressionable child again?”

The color in Sage’s cheeks intensified, giving his skin a distinctly rosy hue. “So, when are you going to plant all those trees in the driveway?”