I had done my homework. I was prepared. The car fell silent — something I’d yearned for all year. My husband and I had just dropped our children off at their North Carolina summer camp, and instead of relief, I felt sadness creep in.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said, reaching over and grabbing my hand.
I’d grown used to the day-to-day rigors of mothering — the constant snack requests, the missing shoes, the endless chauffeuring. Suddenly, two months without it all felt rattling.
We stopped for lunch in Asheville on the drive home. As we headed out of town, a painting hanging in the window of a small art gallery caught my eye. Bold blocks of color — deep greens, warm browns, muted blues — stacked and overlapped across the canvas, forming graphic quilts anchored by a solitary woman, back turned, lifting them onto a clothesline. There was a quiet strength in her stance — capable, independent, unbothered — that was instantly reassuring. As we rounded the bend, leaving Asheville behind, I whispered, “Wow, that was beautiful.”
“What?” my husband asked.
I tried to describe what I’d seen in that five-second glance.
“Want to go back?” he offered. “Take a closer look?”
I brushed off the suggestion. Why would we? We were on a tight timeline and an even tighter budget, and there was no point in falling for something we couldn’t possibly buy.
But the painting stayed with me — as we passed Greenville, then Savannah, then Jacksonville. I couldn’t stop thinking about the colors and shapes layered in motion, and the woman’s calm presence at the center of it all.
By midmorning the next day, I had made up my mind. “We should call,” I said out of nowhere, though my husband knew exactly what I meant.
“I was wondering how long it would take you,” he replied with a chuckle.
After a bit of sleuthing — this was early Google days — we tracked down the gallery and bought the painting over the phone.
It arrived weeks later in an oversized box, far larger than I had expected. Seeing the image up close, I knew this painting belonged in my home. Fifteen years later, it still hangs in my bedroom — a reminder that calm can exist alongside chaos, and that, when the noise finally fades, it’s worth staying long enough to feel the quiet.
Happy reading!
Alona Abbady Martinez
alona@bocaratonobserver.com