It was two in the morning by the time I could bring myself to press the TALK button. My chair was under the door knob, effectively locking any and all intruders out, but I was still in my closet, nestled among someone else's old shoes, at the very back, where my paintings had once been. The phone on the other end of the line rang so loudly I held it away from my ear, trying to soothe the nerves that were already jangling.

I called three times before Ned picked up.

"Hi, hello?" Came his voice from the other end, groggy with sleep.

I breathed, then again, then said, "Ned?"

"Fawn? What's the matter?"

Tears welled up in my eyes and in my voice. "Ned, can you come home?"

He sighed then, desperately forcing himself to stay awake, when his body just wanted to go back to sleep. I thought I could see him rubbing his hands over his face and head, getting used to being up.

"What's the matter? Did something happen?"

I paused, reaching the moment I had been dreading, the reason I had avoided calling him until I was on the edge of a panic attack, myself. What could I say to him? Come home because I kissed someone and it was a mistake? Come home, they want to sell my paintings? Come home, I'm not safe here? Any one of those required more explanation, and I couldn't explain. Not to Ned. Not to anyone.

So instead I settled for "Can you just come home? Please?" The tears had started running down my face, and my breath hitched around the sob lodged somewhere in my throat. I pressed my knuckles to my mouth. "C-come home, please."

"Of course," he said, "of course I'll come home. Are you okay? Are you in any danger?"

I sniffled, unsure, then decided on, "Not danger, no." Would it mean he wouldn't come after all? Maybe I should have said something different. Maybe I should have told him I was dying.

"Good. Stay where you are, okay? Exactly where you are. Don't move a muscle. I'm going to have some coffee and I'll grab a couple things, and then I'll be there. I'll probably be there before you wake up, okay, Fawn?"

I nodded, panting.

"Fawn? I promise you I'll be there soon. It's a couple hours, and the roads are clear. I be there before you know it. Can you hear me?"

I swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah."

"Good. I'm putting my shoes on right now, and I'm grabbing my keys and my wallet, and I'll shove a t-shirt or two into a bag, and then I'm out. Can you reach a timer? Can you see a clock?"

Screwing up my courage, I opened my closet door a crack. The clock read 2:07am. "Yeah, I can see a clock."

"Okay. On a bad day, in the middle of traffic, it takes maybe an hour and a half to get from here to Mansfield. I'll be there before three thirty. I'll probably be there before three. So if you can't sleep, just watch your clock. I'll be there before you know it."

I nodded again, my head lolling to rest on the wall of my closet.

"Fawn?"

"Yeah," I croaked. "Okay." Then, quietly, "Thank you."

"Don't ever thank me. I love you." He hung up.

I stared at the phone for a second. He had told me he'd loved me before, at least a couple times. Once when he was sixteen, and I was twelve, and I'd fallen and sprained my wrist, he had cajoled me back to the main house for ice and one of Tom's old slings. If he hadn't told me he loved me, I would never have dared risking Nola's wrath. Then, even before that, when he had had to make a list of the people he loved, to be handed in to his stern eighth-grade English teacher, my name had been fourth, under Tom's but before Mireille's. That list, I realized, was much like what had gotten me into this mess in the first place.

Ned had told me not to move a muscle, but he was going to get here before three in the morning, and my door was locked with a chair. If I fell asleep, and it was seeming more and more likely with every passing minute that I would, he wouldn't be able to get to me quietly.

With a groan much like Ned's, I forced myself to my feet, pushing my way clumsily out of my closet, tripping over the shoes that had been my seat cushions. I removed the chair from under the doorknob, then stood back, watching the door for something. Was is fear that the door would open? Was it hope that it would be Henry?

An act of faith, I thought, remembering Ned, just Ned, all of Ned. I put the chair down next to its partner desk, curled up on my bed, and fell asleep, dreaming of doors, dreaming of Dr Bertram's angry face, dreaming of being eaten.

For most people, the idea of a professional art career might not be so terrible. When Mary, in her delirious admiration for my work, had ignored my silent protests and brought my work down to show the whole family, a part of me had, indeed, been flattered. Were they that good, these things I had made? Did they merit that much attention?

But then, not contented with the three Mary had shown him, Dr Bertram took the stairs two at a time, and pulled each and every one of the two hundred or so wood blocks, old canvases, pieces of cardboard, and other suitable flat surfaces I'd found to decorate over my ten years at Mansfield, I felt a distinct rise of panic and something else within me. It was something like gorge, something like disgust.

They all loved them, all of them. Apparently, I paint in a particular style that had a certain name to it-Henry snapped his fingers, trying to recall the proper word-but rather than being like, that guy, that New England guy, Turner! That guy Turner, who was largely impressionistic, I was abstract. There was no form to my work but the form of my work, you know?

Nola stood at my threshold, watching the proceedings with a grim sort of sardonic smile, more turned inward than outward. Those watching might have mistaken it for humor or self-effacement, but it was the same face she'd worn that one time I'd beaten her in Go Fish when I was ten, and I'd chosen to sleep on the grounds than be anywhere near her. I was thankful for the solid, emotive buffer that Henry bestowed, even while I wished he were a thousand miles away, too.

They had to be shown, of course. Of course they did. The world needed to see that kind of work, that kind of raw, brilliant, untrained talent. Henry's face was flushed, his eyes bright and earnest, his relaxed, side-stretched grin full of exuberance, full of a kind of reverence. I was so talented. I was just so, so damn talented. Everyone had to see that. How could they not? He rested his hand on my shoulder, briefly, and I felt the current that ran from him to me. Even now, even like this, I wanted to know what his hands felt like on my body. He could make me forget how afraid I was, I thought.

I was nauseous the whole day.

Mary and Henry knew someone, there was this man in a small gallery in New York. Nothing fancy, you understand, but definitely a start, and that way the papers could find me first, and I could work my way up.

At that, I found my voice. To this day, I don't know where it came from, or how, of all times to speak, the facility came to me on that day, on that hour. I should have, by rights, been silent, cowering behind my hair or my shyness or even the nearest piece of furniture, but suddenly Henry had his hand on the phone, ready to find his contact, and everyone was turned toward him, exclaiming at the same time, and I, from the back of the room, said, "Don't do that."

No stutter. No hesitation.

Henry heard me, in the midst of his elation, and snapped his head up to look at me. "What?"

"Don't call that man." My head was spinning; I couldn't take deep breaths.

"Why not? Fawn?" He stepped toward me, pocketing his phone so he could reach out to me with both hands, cradling my elbows with his palms. "What's the matter?"

Having him so close was harder for me, but I pressed on. "They're mine. They don't belong to anyone else. They're not for anyone else to see. I don't want you to c-c-call him." I tried not to beg him, but I think my eyes did it despite my best efforts to control my voice. He looked alarmed and a little flustered, as if I were missing a very obvious point.

"Fawn, no one's trying to take them from you. We don't have to, like, sell them, or anything. Even though you could make bank on them without breaking a sweat, we don't have to sell them." He stepped closer, and my hands touched his chest. "But they're amazing. Your paintings are amazing. The world should see them. I want to see people see them for the first time." Perhaps it was me, but there was an uncomfortable hush around the room as Henry and I stood so close together. I dared not look at Nola, who had wanted Henry for Julia, or at Dr Bertram or his wife, who were probably non-plussed. I dared not think too much about myself, either, because I knew who I wanted, and it wasn't Henry. Not really.

"They're mine," I said, this time not stammering a bit. "I don't want to show them anywhere."

The discussion had gone on late into the day. I was wrong, and everyone knew it. Everyone, it seemed, but me. I didn't understand.

I understood. Each of those paintings had been done at particular moment in my life, notable only for the depth of feeling I'd wanted to express and had not been able to. There were over two hundred of them, of all sizes, and all of them were reminders of when I'd been in intense emotional pain. The thought of someone, anyone, everyone, standing in front of them, hung about prettily in an airy art gallery, and calling them beautiful made me feel sick to my stomach.

No. No. There was no way that was going to happen. No.

Dr Bertram was most vocal, moreso even than Henry, who was amazed by my refusal. I was ignorant, Dr Bertram said. I was unable to see that this was a gift unlike any that I'd been given before. Not everyone had special skills, he said, no matter what we tell our children. And I had been least special of all, until this minute. I had a duty to that skill and to myself and to my family.

I crumpled as he spoke, but I didn't cave.

No, no, I said. Never, I said. No.

And finally, when he was angry and tired of looking at me and my idiocy, Dr Bertram had banished me to my room like the petulant child he had assumed I was, like the petulant child I had prayed they would treat me far before things grew tense.

That had been at eight in the evening. It took me six more hours to decide to call Ned, and still I had almost put the phone down, buried it beneath a pile of someone else's shoes, and pretended to forget my presumption. But Ned had promised, once, to run away with me, wherever it was I decided we should go. He had told me, when I was eleven, that he would trust me with his life. Surely now, after everything, I could call him when I was in need, even if I'd never done it before. Even if I would never do it again.

I didn't believe in God, but when I dialed that phone, I admit I was praying to whatever it was that had answered Ned's prayers all his life. Please, I thought, pausing after the area code, please. If I never call him again. If this is the only time I can bring him away from his life and his career for me, please let it be this time. Please, I need him now. I need him more than ever.

Please.

I woke up to a hand smoothing the hair out of my eyes. It was still dark outside, and for a moment, a horrible moment, I thought it was Henry sitting on the bed next to me, touching my face. I sat bolt upright, shot out of my chair with a kind of terrified, electric excitement.

But it was Ned who caught me by the shoulders, and it was Ned who, quietly, so as not to frighten me or awake anyone else, murmured "It's just me, I'm sorry. It's just me."

I let my heart calm down while I leaned my head against his shoulder, drawing strength from him the way I'd done at the beginning of the summer. His hands didn't drop from my shoulders; they held on to me, and I held on to him.

"I didn't want to startle you. Didn't want to wake you, but I wanted to to know I'd kept my promise. I'm here. You're safe." He rocked me, side to side, like I had seen mothers do with their children. Maybe Uncle Liam had done that for Susie, when she was growing up. Or maybe he wasn't the kind of person who would rock a baby in her sleep.

I started to cry then. Maybe it was having Ned close to me, touching me, when I needed him most, and maybe it was what had happened that day, and all that had happened that year, and maybe it was stress, or depression, but I think it was thinking about Susie, a baby in my uncle's arms, a baby I hadn't seen since two months after she was born. I hadn't seen her grow up-I didn't know the kind of man I had left her to. That, too, was painted on a wooden square. That, too, would Dr Bertram show the world, and for that, too, should I be grateful.

Oh, God.

Ned didn't try to shush me, made no attempt to stop me. He made some small, soothing sound in his throat, then held me gently, smoothing his hand up and down my back as I cried. I gripped him, too, my hands reaching out for his sleeves, for the buttons along the front of his shirt, for his chest itself, the hard, solid, beautiful weight of him.

When I hiccupped to a stop, Ned wiped my eyes with his hands and held out a tissue for me to blow a honking snort with, then he lay me back down on my bed. My clock now read ten minutes to four in the morning. All civilized folk were in bed by now. There was a moment where I panicked, sure that he would cover me in my blanket and sneak out the door to sleep in his own room, but he covered us both with my quilt and lay down next to me, his arms around me, his breathing in my ear.

And I slept, then, better than I had done in weeks.