Walsh Family Universe V2

Sophie showed up at the house on a Saturday afternoon in May with a portfolio case almost as big as she was.

"Mom has a twelve-hour shift," Claire said, looking exhausted herself. "Can Sophie hang out here for the afternoon? I know it's last minute—"

"Of course," Mom said. "We're happy to have her. Noam's home anyway."

Sophie, now eight years old and all legs and energy, was already bounding into the living room. "Noam! Guess what? I brought my art stuff! Can we draw together?"

Ash looked up from the couch where he'd been watching baseball highlights. "Uh, sure?"

"Great! I'll set up!" Sophie was already unzipping her portfolio, pulling out sketchbooks, pencils, a whole array of supplies that looked professional.

Claire caught Ash's eye, smiled apologetically. "She's been on an art kick lately. It's all she wants to do. I hope that's okay?"

"It's fine," Ash said, though something twisted in his chest watching Sophie spread her materials across the coffee table with the reverence he'd once reserved for his own art supplies.

After Claire left, Sophie settled on the floor, patting the space beside her. "Come on! I want to show you what I've been working on."

Ash sat down, feeling oddly awkward. He hadn't drawn seriously in years. Not since he was maybe six or seven. Sports had taken over completely, leaving no time or interest for art.

Sophie opened her sketchbook, and Ash felt something catch in his throat.

The drawings were good. Really good for an eight-year-old. Detailed studies of flowers, a landscape of a park, a portrait of what was probably her mom.

"This is my favorite," Sophie said, pointing to a drawing of a tree. "I used different pencils for the texture. See? The bark is rough, so I used the 2B for darker lines, and the 4H for the light parts."

"You know the different pencil types?"

"Yeah! My art teacher taught me. The H pencils are harder and lighter, the B pencils are softer and darker." Sophie looked at him like this was obvious. "Don't you know that?"

"I... used to."

"Mom said you used to draw a lot when you were little. Before you got really into sports." Sophie pulled out a fresh piece of paper. "Do you still draw sometimes?"

"Not really. I'm too busy with baseball and swimming."

"That's sad," Sophie said matter-of-factly. "You should make time for art. It's important."

Eight years old and lecturing him about making time for art. Ash didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Want to draw with me now?" Sophie offered him a pencil. "We could do a still life. That's when you draw something you can see in real life, like that bowl of fruit on the table."

Ash looked at the fruit bowl. Apples, bananas, a few oranges. Simple enough.

He accepted the pencil, positioned a piece of paper in front of him. Sophie immediately started sketching, her hand moving confidently across the page.

Ash's first few lines were tentative. Wrong. He erased, tried again.

"You're thinking too much," Sophie said, not looking up from her own drawing. "Just look at the shapes. Don't think 'apple,' think 'round thing with a little stem.'"

"When did you get so wise about art?"

"I pay attention in art class. Plus I watch videos on YouTube about drawing techniques." Sophie shaded part of her apple. "You have to practice a lot to get good. That's what my teacher says."

Ash kept drawing, his hand slowly remembering motions it hadn't performed in years. The curve of an apple. The way light hit the surface. Shadows underneath.

It wasn't good. Not like his old work. Not even like Sophie's work, honestly. But it was something.

"That's pretty good!" Sophie said, leaning over to look. "Your proportions are right. You just need to work on shading more."

"Thanks, I think?"

"Here, watch." Sophie demonstrated a shading technique, her pencil moving in small circular motions. "This makes it look more three-dimensional. See?"

Ash watched, feeling a strange mix of emotions. Pride that Sophie was so talented. Sadness that he'd let this skill atrophy. Something else he couldn't quite name.

"You're really good at this," he said.

Sophie beamed. "Thanks! I want to be an artist when I grow up. A real one, who sells paintings in galleries and stuff."

"That's a cool dream."

"What do you want to be?"

Ash thought about it. At ten years old, with eight more years to go, the question felt both immediate and impossibly distant.

"I don't know. Maybe something with baseball or swimming. A coach, maybe."

"That's boring," Sophie said bluntly. "You should do something more creative."

"Sports aren't boring."

"They're not creative though. Art is creative. You make something that didn't exist before." Sophie started on another drawing, this time of her own hand. "When I draw something, it's like... I'm putting part of myself on the paper. Part of how I see the world."

Ash remembered feeling that way. Remembered the satisfaction of capturing something perfectly, of translating what he saw in his mind onto paper or canvas.

When had he stopped caring about that?

"Do you ever paint?" Sophie asked. "Or just draw?"

"I used to paint. Watercolors, acrylics. Haven't in a long time."

"We should paint together sometime! Mom has a whole set at home. Maybe next time I visit?"

"Maybe."

They drew in comfortable silence for a while. Sophie worked with complete focus, occasionally making comments about technique or composition. Ash fumbled through his drawing, slowly remembering skills he'd abandoned.

"You know what's cool?" Sophie said suddenly. "We're the same generation now."

Ash looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"Like, I'm eight and you're ten. We're both kids. Mom said you used to be a grown-up, but now we're both just kids." Sophie smiled. "It's nice having someone to do art with. Declan doesn't care about art, and Eden likes it but she's always busy."

"What about your mom?"

"Mom likes art but she's tired all the time from work. And she's my mom, so it's different." Sophie added detail to her drawing. "But you're like... I don't know. Not quite my uncle, not quite my brother. Just Noam."

Not Uncle Noam anymore. Just Noam. The shift had happened gradually—Sophie had started dropping the "Uncle" around age six or seven, and no one had corrected her.

"Yeah," Ash said. "Just Noam."

"Do you miss being a grown-up?"

The question was so direct, so innocent. Only an eight-year-old would ask it like that.

"Sometimes. But I don't really remember what it was like very well anymore." A lie, but a kind one.

"That's probably good. It would be hard to be a kid if you were always thinking about being a grown-up."

"Yeah. It would be."

Sophie finished her drawing—a detailed study of her hand that was honestly impressive. She held it up critically. "The thumb's a little off. But overall I think it's good."

"It's really good."

"Thanks!" She looked at his fruit bowl drawing. "Yours is good too. You should keep practicing. You could get good again if you practiced."

"I'm pretty busy with sports."

"But don't you miss it? Drawing and painting and making art?" Sophie tilted her head, studying him. "Mom said you used to love it. That you were really talented."

Ash looked at his mediocre fruit bowl drawing. At Sophie's skilled hand study. At the portfolio of work she'd brought, evidence of dedication and practice.

"I did love it," he admitted. "I was good at it."

"So why'd you stop?"

How to explain? That art had been tied up with his old identity, his old life, his old body? That sports gave him something art never could—clear metrics, team belonging, physical mastery?

That becoming an athlete instead of an artist was part of becoming Noam instead of Ash?

"I found other things I liked more," Ash said finally.

"Hmm." Sophie didn't look convinced. "I don't think you can really stop loving art once you love it. It's like... it's part of you. Even if you do other things."

She started packing up her supplies. "Can I leave some stuff here? So next time I visit we can draw together again?"

"Sure."

"Great! I'll leave you the sketch pad and some pencils. You should practice between now and next time." Sophie handed him the supplies like a teacher assigning homework. "Try drawing your hand, like I did. Hands are hard but they're good practice."

Mom appeared in the doorway. "Sophie, honey, your mom just texted. She's going to pick you up in about twenty minutes. Do you want a snack before you go?"

"Yes please!" Sophie bounded toward the kitchen, leaving Ash sitting on the floor surrounded by art supplies he hadn't touched in years.

He looked at his fruit bowl drawing. It was amateur, rough, lacking the skill he'd once had. But it was also something he'd made. Something that hadn't existed before he put pencil to paper.

Sophie's words echoed: You can't really stop loving art once you love it. It's part of you.

Was that true? Had he stopped loving art, or just stopped letting himself love it?

After Sophie left, Ash carried the sketch pad up to his room. He sat at his desk, looked at his hand, and started drawing.

It was rough. His lines weren't confident. The proportions were slightly off. But as he worked, something familiar stirred. A kind of focus he'd forgotten. A satisfaction in capturing what he saw.

His room was full of baseball trophies and swim medals. Evidence of who Noam was—athlete, competitor, team player.

But in a drawer of his desk, covered in dust, was his old easel. Paint brushes he hadn't touched in years. A reminder of who Ash had been—artist, creative, alternative.

Maybe both could be true.

Maybe he could be the athlete he'd become and still make space for the artist he'd been.

He drew for another twenty minutes, working on the hand. It wasn't good. But it was something.

When he was done, he looked at it critically. Sophie would probably have notes—the shading wasn't quite right, the fingers needed more detail.

But he'd made it. And some small part of him had enjoyed it.

"My name is Ash," he whispered to his room. "I used to be an artist. Maybe I still am, underneath everything else."

He put the drawing in the desk drawer, next to the old easel.

Then he went downstairs to watch baseball highlights and review plays for tomorrow's game.

Because he was also Noam, ten-year-old athlete with practice in the morning.

Both things.

Always both things.

But maybe—just maybe—there was room for a little more of the first thing than he'd allowed himself in years.

Two weeks later, Sophie came over again.

"Did you practice?" she demanded immediately, pulling out her portfolio.

"A little."

"Show me!"

Ash retrieved his sketch pad from upstairs. The hand drawing, plus a few other attempts—a tree outside his window, his baseball glove, a simple portrait.

Sophie examined them seriously. "These are good! You did practice! The shading is better."

"You're a tough teacher."

"That's because I know you can do better. These are good for someone who hasn't practiced in a while. But you used to be really good, right?"

"Yeah."

"So you can be really good again if you keep practicing." Sophie pulled out paint supplies. "Today we're doing watercolors. I brought two sets so we can paint together."

They set up on the back patio, papers weighted down against the breeze, water cups and brushes arranged carefully.

"We're going to paint the garden," Sophie announced. "Landscapes are fun because you can be impressionistic—that means you suggest the shapes and colors instead of making everything exact."

"I know what impressionistic means."

"Oh. Right. You're older." Sophie grinned. "Sometimes I forget."

They painted in the afternoon sun. Sophie's landscape was loose and colorful, capturing the essence of the garden without fussing over details. Ash's was more careful, more controlled, trying to remember techniques he'd once known instinctively.

"You're being too precise," Sophie critiqued. "Watercolor is better when you let it be loose. Let the colors blend and bleed. See?" She demonstrated, her brush loaded with water and pigment, letting it spread naturally across the paper.

Ash tried it. The colors bled together, creating soft transitions. It was less controlled than he wanted, but also more alive.

"There! That's better!" Sophie approved.

They painted for an hour, Sophie chattering about her art class and a competition she wanted to enter. Ash mostly listened, adding comments occasionally, focused on the painting emerging on his paper.

It wasn't great. But it was better than the fruit bowl had been. And the act of painting—the feel of the brush, the mixing of colors, the slow building of an image—felt like remembering a language he'd once spoken fluently.

When Sophie's mom picked her up, she left more supplies. "For practicing," she said firmly. "I'll check your progress next time."

"You're very bossy for an eight-year-old."

"Someone has to make sure you don't forget how to be creative." Sophie hugged him. "See you next week, Noam!"

Just Noam. Not Uncle Noam. Not even really uncle anymore, except in the technical sense.

Just two kids who liked art. An eight-year-old and a ten-year-old—though technically there were twenty-four years between them if you counted Ash's original age.

After she left, Ash looked at his watercolor. It was amateur work. Nothing like what he'd been capable of at twenty-four.

But it was also something he'd made. Something that hadn't existed before this afternoon.

He hung it on his wall, next to a team photo from baseball.

Athlete and artist.

Noam and Ash.

Both parts of who he was, even if one had been dormant for years.

Four thousand, eight hundred and seventy-three days to go.

But today he'd painted for the first time in years, under the instruction of his eight-year-old niece-who-wasn't-quite-his-niece-anymore.

Today he'd remembered that art had been part of him once. Could be part of him again.

Not instead of sports. Not giving up being an athlete.

But alongside it. Making space for both.

Sophie was right. You couldn't really stop loving art once you loved it.

It was just a matter of remembering how.