Chapter 11: April - The Opening

Portland smelled of wet pavement, coffee, and possibility.

They arrived two days early, driving down from the cottage at dawn with the truck packed tight: fifteen canvases wrapped in blankets and prayers, two suitcases, one very disgruntled cat in a carrier (Moony had been promised a weekend with the neighbor; Juniper refused to be left behind). The city felt loud after months of only wind and waves, but it was a sound loud (alive, humming, forgiving).

The gallery sat on a corner in the Pearl District, all white walls and polished concrete and windows tall enough to let the sky in. When they walked through the service door on Thursday afternoon, the director, Elena Marlowe herself, greeted Nawana with a genuine, slightly awed hug.

“Your work is even more extraordinary in person,” she said, and Nawana flushed dark rose, looking at the floor as if she still expected someone to tell her it was a mistake.

Susan squeezed her hand once (I’m here) and let go only when the installers needed them both.

They hung the show together.

Piece by piece, the white walls filled with the last year of Nawana’s life.

The violent indigo storm that had rattled the cottage in September. The small, tender study of Susan’s hands holding a chipped coffee mug at sunrise. The large canvas of the jasmine vine in full, reckless bloom, painted the week after the kitchen-floor night (white petals so luminous they seemed to glow from within). The portrait from the rocks (apricot juice on Nawana’s wrist, laughter in her eyes, titled simply The Day She Said Yes). And the newest one, finished only three weeks ago: Susan and Nawana asleep on the window seat, limbs tangled, afternoon light pouring over them like mercy. The scar was visible. The love was undeniable.