Sea Glass Inn by Karis Walsh

remember doing it. She took her time arranging the brushes in rows, their ends perfectly even, before she started to unpack her paints.
    She opened the first tube and closed her eyes as the viscous, smudgy smell of the oils hit her nose. No turning back now. Even stronger than any visual cue, the scent of her art connected her to the first drawings she had made as a child. Waxy crayons, chalky pastels, cheap sets of watercolors. Sometimes she could ignore the landscapes, the faces, the images that inspired her. But once snared by the smell of the paint, she couldn’t stop the rest of the painting from pouring out.
    Pam took a deep breath and smeared a line of black paint on the canvas, outlining the jagged silhouette of the back side of the large rock. She was surprised her hand didn’t shake as she sketched the dark outline since her willingness to return to painting for this woman was so frightening.
    Of course she found Mel beautiful—there was nothing unusual about that. She could admire beautiful women. Sleep with them.
    Even take care of chores or projects for them, often against her better judgment. But draw for them? Not even a sketch on a bar napkin. Agreeing to paint for Mel, opening herself to friendship and connection, was dangerous. For years, she had survived by avoiding close relationships, ignoring any attraction that might lead to something deeper than a one-night stand. Tourists and itinerant visitors to her small seaside town were fine, offering sex with no strings or commitment, but Mel seemed determined to stay.
    Even though Pam would normally bet her life savings that a new entrepreneur hoping to open and run a successful bed-and-breakfast would fail as so many had before, there was something about Mel that made her hesitate. If anyone had a chance to fulfill her dream and build an inn that would be a haven to tourists, it would be Mel. She seemed to represent family and permanence, sanctuary and home—myths that Pam had foolishly fallen for long ago.
    The memory of what she had lost, the very things Mel was fighting to create, hit her with such force. In the belly, in the heart, in her mind, everywhere she was most vulnerable and most susceptible to the pain. She wanted to smash her canvas, snap the brushes in half, throw her tubes of paint against the wall. Destroy, not create. She had trusted in forever only to have it torn away. She couldn’t allow it to happen again, regardless of how tempting Mel could be. All Pam had to do was deliver her promised paintings—no matter how painful it was to finish them—and get Mel out of her life.
    The colors Pam slashed across the canvas were dark and shadowy.
    Black for the basalt, with a hint of red flame from its volcanic past.
    Deep purples, blues, and greens for the anemones that remained in place and mocked the starfish as they strove to save themselves. Stark blue-black mussels and white barnacles that clung to the rock. The textures were thick as she layered coats of paint on the canvas. But when she moved to the ocean’s waves, her colors softened, her paint lightened into teal and aqua, with a whitish foam that marked the edge of the surf. She added a glint of sunlight on the water and allowed it to illuminate several tiny fish in the tide pool, some fronds of seaweed that softened the harsh edges of the rocks, and a tiny waterfall where the ocean’s waves still drained into the pool.
    Once she started to paint, her brain and hands seemed to move automatically, translating the image in her mind into a series of strokes and hues until the first stage of the painting was finished. She didn’t even stop to consult the hastily made sketch she had drawn when she returned from her walk—on her kitchen counter since no paper had been available. It seemed as if she blinked three hours after that first brushstroke, waking out of a trance, and stepped back from the almost-complete picture. She had captured the scene, caught the starfish in their dying