Chapter 28

Jacob’s other life, that of an artist, was undergoing its own unexpected expansion. The gallery exhibition of his paintings and his sketches was finally opening.

Six months ago, the Parkers, Jane and Sara had descended on his art room like a couple of cheerful archaeologists, excavating box after box his work from where he had stacked them after his move. They discovered portfolios he’d forgotten about.

While they were working, they bickered about the best to way curate what they were finding. The paintings, they reached agreement early on. They would take up take up the south wall of the narrow showroom. It was when they came upon the years of sketch pads that the disagreements erupted. The more they uncovered, the more oohs and ahhs came from the room.

Jacob watched their excitement with growing anxiety. He had never intended for anyone to see the sketches. His paintings, those he had consciously created as “art”—were one thing. But the sketches? Those were different. Those were his private emotional journal, rendered in graphite, ink and charcoal instead of words.

“Oh my God, look at these!” Jane Parker exclaimed, carefully laying out dozens of drawings on the floor. They showed children’s faces—some laughing, some serious, some hollow-eyed with thousand-yard stares that seemed to look through the viewer.

Jacob remembered how hard he had worked to learn how to capture the essences of kids whose faces he had sketched. Drawing had been his way of processing, of understanding the revolving door of kids who came into his life and left suddenly during his group home years. He hadn’t drawn them to create art; he’d drawn them so he wouldn’t forget.

“We’ll need to group them thematically,” Sara said. “Look at these Christmas scenes—they’re heartbreaking when you see them all together.” She gestured to the series, dozens of sketches he’d made while standing outside of houses of families gathered around Christmas trees. In each image, the perspective was always from the outside looking in—frost-edged windows framing scenes of family warmth that remained inaccessible to the artist. The primitive Grandma Moses style made them more poignant—a child’s hand trying to capture the concept of belonging he couldn’t articulate in words.

“Jacob, these are extraordinary,” Linda said, carefully placing a protective sheet over a delicate sketch of an elderly woman’s winsome smile. “Please, please, let us show these. People need to see them. They show so much growth, so much...”

He had nodded his permission, but inside his gut clenched. He felt exposed, as if they were hanging his diary entries on the wall for people to read. These sketches—these visual notes he’d made to remember emotions and faces—were about to become public property in a way he hadn’t anticipated. When viewed in their entirety, they revealed a narrative of longing, observation, and gradually learning to belong that was far more revealing than he was comfortable with.

The other happenings in his life soon crowded those thoughts. Then, six months later, he was having dinner with Eliza and the girls at his place when he got a call from an excited Sara informing him that the long awaited exhibition was about to open. Knowing that he didn’t want to attend the premier exhibition, she invited him down to the pre-exhibition the day before the official opening. He hung up with a grimace.

Elisa and the girls were at his kitchen table, Elisa marking up a script the girls doing homework. She caught his expression when he hung up.

“What’s wrong? Who was it?”

“Sara Parker. The exhibition opens this weekend. She asked me to come to the pre-show on Friday.”

“That’s good news. Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure. I know, it’s too late for second thoughts, but I wish I hadn’t agreed to the exhibition.”

The bell above the door of the 615 Gallery chimed softly as Jacob pushed it open, holding it for Elisa and the girls who followed behind him. The gallery was abuzz with quiet, intense conversations. Well-dressed people, each holding a wine glass, were scattered throughout the space, focusing on the walls.

Sara Parker, who had been speaking with a woman jotting notes on a small tablet, excused herself and hurried over to greet them.

“You came!” she exclaimed, genuine relief in her voice. “We weren’t sure you would. I know how much you hate this stuff. The critics are already here—I hope you don’t mind. Jane thought it would be good to have some press coverage before the official opening.”

Jacob nodded tensely; his apprehension now multiplied. He’d expected a private viewing, not an audience of professional observers already analyzing his most personal work.

“You guys have done a fantastic job,” Elisa said. “What has been the response so far?”

“So far, so good. The people from the Frist Museum and bought three paintings for their collection! She smiled at Jacob. “Ready to see what we’ve done?”

He wasn’t, but he nodded anyway.

The main gallery space opened before them as they rounded the corner from the small entryway. Jacob stopped so abruptly that Sophie bumped into him from behind. “Sorry,” he murmured automatically, but he couldn’t take his eyes off what lay before him.

Cork board, painted a subtle charcoal gray, entirely covered the north wall, just as Sara had described on the phone; this made the wall recede visually while highlighting the sketches mounted on them.

And what was mounted was his life. Hundreds of sketches arranged in a flowing, organic pattern that somehow managed to seem both meticulously organized and spontaneously composed.

“It’s extraordinary,” he heard a tall woman with angular glasses gush. She was standing nearby, speaking to a younger man with a press badge. “The evolution of technique is fascinating, but it’s the emotional throughline that makes it powerful. You can trace the artist’s psychological development through his observational perspective.”