James gulped. “But Mom....”
She looked at him in a funny sort of way, but she didn’t say any more, and then she walked up toward the house.
Janie was getting ready to go to Deerpath with the Landrys when the prize was announced, so her normal surprise and protest were somewhat muffled in the mild excitement of leaving.
That was the end of it. James felt baffled. He walked around with the candy bar in his hand. What was the matter with Mom? Couldn’t she see a joke?
The rest of the afternoon passed in a dull sort of way. Mom was busy with preparations for Sunday and she didn’t seem to pay any attention to him. Billy and Davey were fishing at the dam and Janie wasn’t home. He walked around with his face squinted up in a frown, kicking at tufts of grass.
“Maybe tonight I can finish my sunset,” he muttered.
Early in the season Aunt Claire gave James a piece of canvas and some tubes of oil paint.
“Paint the sunset,” she encouraged him. “You draw well and we have such beautiful sunsets out here. See what you can do.”
Every evening, as the sun sank, James hauled forth his canvas and brushes. He’d get everything organized for painting. The sun got splashed in the middle of the horizon, an oily red blob surrounded by sausage-like clouds in a glazed blue sky. His nose would wrinkle in a distressed sort of way.
“This isn’t the way Aunt Claire’s sunsets look.”