Chapter 9 - THE TRUE CANVAS
Six months later, the autumn air in Central Park was crisp, smelling of roasted nuts and dry leaves. I sat on a bench near the Bethesda Terrace, a brand-new sketchbook resting on my lap, my charcoal pencil moving swiftly over the rough paper.
“You’re smudging the left eye,” Dante said, sitting close beside me, his shoulder pressed warmly against mine.
I bumped him with my elbow, smiling. “I’m the artist, Mr. Romano. You’re just the billionaire.”
He laughed, a deep, rich sound that I had come to love. He leaned over and kissed my temple, his hand resting comfortably on my knee.
A lot had changed in six months.
The fallout from the Good Morning America broadcast had been seismic. Bianca Hale’s carefully constructed world collapsed in an afternoon. The book was pulled from shelves. The fraud investigation forced her to liquidate the assets she had bought with Dante’s credit line—including our apartment building.
But we didn’t press criminal charges.
Mom wouldn’t allow it.
“She has been punished enough by the lie she lived,” Mom had said the day after the broadcast. “I won’t send my daughter to prison.”
Beatrice had left New York shortly after. She sent Mom a single email a month later, apologizing, and saying she needed time to figure out who Beatrice Turner actually was. Mom replied with one line: Whenever you are ready, the door is open.
It was a fracture that would take years to heal, but for the first time, there was hope.
As for me, Julian Price had true to his word. Once the legal mess was cleared, he offered me a legitimate publishing contract.
Today was launch day.
“They’re here,” Dante said, pointing down the tree-lined path.
Mom was walking toward us, holding the hand of Julian’s six-year-old niece, Lily, who had insisted on coming to the launch party. Mom looked radiant. She was wearing a beautiful tailored wool coat that Dante had bought her, but she still wore her grandmother’s silver thimble on a chain around her neck.
“Rosie!” Mom called out, waving a copy of a book in her hand.
I stood up to meet her. She handed me the hardcover book.
The cover was the same portrait of Mom sitting at her sewing machine. But the title was different.
THE HANDS THAT HELD US.Art and Words by Rose Turner.
I traced my name on the cover, tears pricking my eyes. It wasn’t a lie anymore. It was my heart, out in the world, exactly as it was meant to be.
“We just passed the bookstore on 5th Avenue,” Mom said, her eyes shining with pride. “They have a whole window display, Rose. Your drawings. Your words.”
“Julian said the first printing sold out in pre-orders,” Dante added, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. “You’re a bestseller, Rose.”
I leaned back into his embrace, feeling entirely safe. I had spent so much of my life making myself small, hiding my talent under beds and behind cleaning carts, believing I didn’t deserve a space in the world.
Lily tugged on my skirt. “Can you draw me now, Rose?”
I smiled down at the little girl. “Of course I can, sweetie.”
I sat back down on the bench, opening my sketchbook to a fresh, blank page. Mom sat on one side of me, Dante on the other.
May you like
I picked up my charcoal. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t trying to capture a memory of something I was afraid to lose. I was drawing the beautiful, messy, truthful present.
And as the charcoal touched the paper, I knew the picture was finally complete.
