Chapter 24: Hanging Day
September arrived with the practical, unglamorous work of putting a show together, and Talia learned that hanging a gallery is as much a craft as drawing. Ingrid Sorensen and June Park, the Meridian Gallery assistant, worked with her for days, measuring walls, testing lights, and moving pieces a few inches at a time until the room felt right. Talia had imagined this part would be quick, but it was slow and careful, and she came to like it. A drawing that looked strong in the studio could look lost on a large white wall. A drawing that looked quiet at home could become powerful when the light fell across it at the right angle. June, who was organised and kind, kept a list of every title, price, and frame size, and checked each one twice. Ingrid talked about sightlines, about how a visitor's eye should travel from the entrance to Mother at Dawn and then outward to Dawn Shift, like walking from a kitchen into a street at sunrise.
Talia wrote the wall labels herself, in short, plain sentences. She listed the medium, the size, and a line or two about the hour depicted, nothing more. For the Dawn Shift pieces, she priced them modestly, the way Ingrid advised for a first solo show, high enough to respect the labour and low enough that a teacher, a nurse, or a young collector could consider one. Mother at Dawn carried no price. Its label read, simply, on loan from the artist, not for sale. Talia stood before that label for a long time, checking that it said exactly what she meant. It did. She felt relieved, not triumphant, as if she had set a boundary and the boundary had held.
Press came in small, steady waves. A local arts reporter visited the studio and asked Talia about her process, her materials, and the night workers she drew. Talia answered carefully, describing charcoal, collage, and the way dawn light changed a room. She did not perform her old wound for the camera. When the reporter asked about the torn sketch, Talia said only that it had happened, that she had repaired the drawing, and that the repair was part of the work now. The reporter nodded and wrote it down without pressing for more. A photographer took pictures of Talia's hands, her table, and the mirror portrait. Talia was grateful that no one asked her to reenact pain for a better picture.
In the middle of that busy week, Madison Pierce visited the studio. Madison had been a rival at Westfield High, a girl who had laughed when Talia's work was mocked and who had, for a time, enjoyed being on the winning side of a classroom. She was now a design student, quieter, less certain, carrying a portfolio of her own. She had called ahead, which Talia appreciated, and she did not arrive with flowers or a grand gesture. She stood in the doorway, looked at the Dawn Shift drawings, and then said, plainly, that she was sorry for the school days, for laughing, for not speaking up when she should have. She did not explain it away. She did not ask Talia to say it was fine. She said she had thought about it for years and wanted Talia to hear it from her directly.
Talia listened without interrupting. She felt a complicated mix of feelings, not anger exactly, and not warmth either, but a kind of recognition. People changed, slowly, and sometimes they came back to say so. Talia told Madison that she accepted the apology, that she appreciated her coming in person, and that she did not want to pretend they were best friends now. Madison nodded, relieved and a little sad, and said she understood. They talked for a while about design school, about colour and layout, about work that was hard to finish. It was an ordinary conversation, and that ordinariness felt honest. Talia did not make Madison a hero for apologising. She did not make her a villain either. She let her be a person who had done something unkind as a teenager and had grown enough to name it.
After Madison left, Talia returned to the gallery and helped June hang the last pieces. Otis Freeman came by with sandwiches, moving slowly but steady, and approved of the lighting with a grunt that Talia knew meant praise. Denise stopped in after her shift, looked at the room taking shape, and said it felt like morning. Talia thought that was the best review she could have hoped for. By the end of September, the show was ready: titles checked, prices listed, lights aimed, Mother at Dawn waiting in its place, not for sale, at the centre of a room full of new work. Talia went home tired, washed charcoal from her hands, and slept without dreaming of school. The next week, the doors would open, and she would stand in that room and see what she had made, together with everyone else.