Tuesday Tales: From a Picture

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales and another peek at several manuscripts in process. I’m continuing with Forever in my Heart. This is picture prompt week, where our scenes are limited to only 300 words. Here’s the picture I chose.

Mike sat on the sofa in the family room next to Callie, Iris on his lap, while she held Rose. After the viewing at the morgue, they’d checked out of the hotel and had driven back to Timberton, the baby girls jabbering in the limousine as if trying to tell her all about something. The nanny would be in shortly to take them for their supper and then settle them for the night. Normally, he liked to help with bath time, but he knew Cal wanted to discuss the provisions in the will.

“That’s one of your Nana’s paintings,” Callie said, indicating the framed picture above the fireplace to the child. “That’s the home I grew up in. She must’ve painted it from memory because I’ve never seen this before, but I would recognize her work anywhere.” She stood, propped Rose against her hip, and walked over to it. “Yup. There’s the A she always used to sign her work.” She turned to him. “Do you have more of her paintings here?”

“I’m not sure. There’s one in the foyer, and Cal has one in his office. Do you have many?”

“A few. Her work started selling well, a couple of years before she died. Now, her agent asks me to send him one of her old, forgotten pieces each year. He sells it, and we donate the proceeds to cancer research. It’s what she would’ve wanted.”

Louise entered the room. She carried a platter of appetizers. “Mrs. Faraday sent these along. She’ll be here in a minute with the wine. Did you want red or white?”

“Callie?”

“A dry red if you have one,” she answered. “Luke preferred white. I suppose you do, too.”

“Actually, I like a good Merlot. We were identical in many ways, but we did have individual tastes and personalities.”

That’s it. Stay safe and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales