Chapter 2
Ellis didn’t sleep when he got home. Instead he went into his studio and began working on a new canvas. Many hours later, ignoring Janice’s summons to breakfast and lunch, and Jive’s whining at the door, he finally stepped back to look at what he was creating. It was bleak. The total antithesis of what he was known for.
“Is it good?” he murmured. “Or have I gone off the deep end in my old age?”
He knew one person who would give him an honest answer.
“Janice,” he said, walking into the living room to interrupt her vacuuming.
“It’s about time you showed your face. I was beginning to wonder if you’d given up eating for…well, it’s past Lent, but…”
“No.” He realized he was hungry now. Starving in fact. And extremely tired but elated as well. “I’d love something to eat—after you
